Over the weekend, I was looking at college rankings. I pretty much hate most college ranking systems, because they include variables that I think aren’t useful. I’m looking at the U.S. News and World Report ranking methodology right now.
The US News ranking relies heavily on the academic reputation based on peer evaluations. How college faculty and administrations view other colleges is a weird thing. A professor at Harvard really doesn’t know anything about the classroom instruction at Columbia. They may know that some guys in the sociology department publish a lot in top tier journals and that it is hard to find a position at that school, but they don’t know if those guys show up to class on time, if they hold regular office hours, or if they farm out most of the instruction to adjuncts.
A small college may do a great job in job placement in certain fields. Faculty on the opposite side of the country would have no way of knowing that.
The U.S. World and News Report places 20 percent of their overall score on “faculty resources.” Higher scores go to schools with small class size and with well paid faculty. Of that 20 percent, 5 percent of that number goes to schools that have more full time faculty. The ratio of adjuncts to full time faculty is a really important number that should have a greater weight.
Five percent of the overall score goes towards alumni giving. Five percent isn’t a lot, but I’m not sure why it is relevant at all. Alumni who give are rich and/or care too much about sports. That’s a negative for me.
I would like a ranking system that includes some weight to peer evaluations. I think a good undergraduate professor publishes from time to time. However, it is equally important to me that the professor puts a lot of effort into classroom instruction. I would like some variable on a ranking system that gets to the issue of quality teaching.
Also, reputation of a school has to include more than feedback from college administrators. I would love to see a ranking that included surveys from local businesses and even from students.
I would deduct points from schools that had heavy Greek systems or major sports programs, but that’s just me.
I would deduct points from schools that relied heavily on low paid adjuncts. Because employing slave labor is just wrong.
I would deduct points from schools that had trouble getting students out in four years.
I would deduct points from schools that had no employment advisement.
I would deduct points from schools with too many rich kids. Because diversity is important. Because we won’t be able to afford those schools. And because I’m in a commie mood.
College selectivity is super important. Weirdly, the US News ranking system only gives that variable a weight of 12.5 percent. It’s less important in their ranking system than faculty salaries. I miss the old Baron’s ranking system that relied heavily on the selectivity variable.
No matter what college ranking system that you employ, the top 25 colleges will probably remain on that list. The schools are super hard to get into. They have vast amounts of financial resources. Administrators are vigilant that their reputation is well earned. But after that top 25, there is a lot more room for movement.
My eldest kid is a good student, but not the best student. He will have his running trophies to demonstrate leadership and commitment. He will need a super generous private school or an excellent public college, since we don’t have a cent saved for his education. I want him within a five hour drive of my house. He needs a college in the 25-50 range. I’ve got about three colleges on my mental list, but we need more options.
Apt. 11d 
“I would deduct points from schools that had trouble getting students out in four years.
…
I would deduct points from schools with too many rich kids.
Mutually exclusive, for the most part. But it also depends on what “rich” means. In any case, getting poor, unprepared kids through college at all, much less in four years, seems to be a huge challenge. Critics of the administration’s new rating system say using this measure is wrong, and probably helps hasten the dumbing down of college curriculum.
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“Mutually exclusive, for the most part.”
Yep.
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Not sure why you think college selectivity is super important. I have heard that some campuses try to protect/improve their yield/selectivity percentage by a number of different strategies- not necessaryly to the benefit of applicants.
College Confidential is a pretty good resource if you can ignore the crazies and super competitive parents (and the “chance me threads”). I know a number of people who were helped to develop a good list of colleges to look at, and even apply- which took into consideration financials, need for merit aid, college characteristics and demographics of the student population. I am still in contact with a number of parents that met through there during our kids’ application season.
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“Not sure why you think college selectivity is super important. I have heard that some campuses try to protect/improve their yield/selectivity percentage by a number of different strategies- not necessaryly to the benefit of applicants.”
Exactly. Selectivity is very gameable–you just elicit a bigger pool of sucker, no-hope applicants and watch your selectivity rating soar.
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Oh, maybe I’m using the wrong word… I meant selectivity in terms of test scores and GPA. Not so much on rejection rate.
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Yes, it struck me, too, that getting students out in four years is highly correlated with how rich the school is (and how rich the kids are, features that interact with one another). There’s a story circulating my FB feed about a major donation to Haverford college, by the current chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, who attended Haverford:
“Howard Lutnick lost his mother to cancer when he was a high school junior. And one week into his freshman year at Haverford College, his father died – the result of a tragic medical mistake.
That’s when he got the phone call from Robert B. Stevens, then president of Haverford:
“Howard, your four years here are free.”
Rich alumni who make donations (of whom Lutnick is now one) pay for that kind of flexibility. They pay for the poor kids, and the kids whose parents can’t pickup the slack after unexpected issues. RIch parents pick up the slack for their own kids, when they fail their classes, change their minds, have a bad break up, . . . .
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Life insurance, life insurance, life insurance.
Any upper middle class family should have at least a million dollars in life insurance. We carry that much, and I’m not sure it’s quite enough.
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Lutnick had siblings, who, I believe, also went to Haverford. And, insurance payoffs can be too slow to pay tuition, when you’re in the middle of school, and don’t have resources.
My own undergraduate institution actually said something similar (not free, and not four years, but, “don’t worry about the money”) when a student’s parent died unexpectedly at the beginning of senior year. In that case, the money was tied up so that ready funds for the first quarter weren’t available yet, in the student’s hands. State universities that have to make budget, or small private colleges, don’t have that luxury, if they don’t have the funds.
Insurance is a backstop for unexpected death of a wage earner, but doesn’t work for job loss, or disability, or economic collapse of a business. In these cases, the rich universities are providing risk-sharing across their student population.
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Not so sure about that “graduating them in four years” measure. I went to a highly-rated school famous for one of the highest rates in the country of people graduating in four years. In retrospect, I find that a little depressing. Nobody took time off to work on a presidential campaign or to travel or try something else after sophomore year.
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And I went to a highly ranked school that had a reputation for having a higher than average attrition rate and 4 year graduation rate. That statistic was touted internally, because it supported the goal of the school, to provide a highly rigorous and highly specialized education, one that wasn’t right for everyone, even all the people they accepted. In many cases, the attrition resulted in students finding new schools that were better fits for the goals that had evolved since senior year in HS.
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I think there are a number of different reasons people want rankings. Looks like you’re looking for a ranking for J and your family. As someone else mentions, the place to look for that is the data (some of those numbers you can look up yourself, like GPA/SAT selectivity and potentially proportion of adjuncts) and sources like College Confidential (if you are strong and insensitive enough to ignore the stuff you need to ignore).
I haven’t thought through precisely what the rankings I’ll be looking for for my own children (they’re still too young for some of the variables to be set — for example, for me, access to research/research professors was important, but I don’t know if it will be for my kiddos). But when I do start thinking about it, some of the criteria you don’t value as much might be more important to me (for example, reputation rankings are undoubtedly important for law schools and people’s professional careers, and that has to be taken into account, independent of how one feels about reputation rankings). I don’t know that matters for undergraduate in the same way, but it might, especially if the kids were considering careers in other countries, where reputation rankings can play a big role in opportunities.
Then there’s the question of rankings for government/regulation/rules. For those rankings I think we need to consider more completely the role that the rankings play in choices the schools make (say, not accepting students because they are worried the kids won’t have financial support to graduate in 4 years) as well as what we think of the information conveyed by the particular statistic.
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I wrote two longer replies which have vanished. Sigh.
I’ll keep it short. His first attempts at the SAT/ACT/PSAT will give you an idea of his range of schools. He should take both SAT and ACT to find out which he does better on. Often one is significantly better than the other.
Posting now, to see if it takes.
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New SAT in spring of 2016. That’s particularly relevant to this years sophomores, right?
There are kids in my kiddos school who are taking 4 tests this fall, for HS admissions, the SSAT, ISEE, the public school test, and a special test for a particular catholic school. And, that’s in addition to the standardized testing in school, which I guess would make the count 5 tests this fall (oh, and if they take the SAT or SCAT or ACT for Johns Hopkins or Duke talented program eligibility, they could actually take 7+ tests!). I *like* standardized testing, but that’s mostly crazy.
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My 7th grader is taking the SAT for the Duke thing this winter.
(I did the Johns Hopkins thing as a kid, but I think it was way more important for me at the time than it will be for my 7th grader. She has way more going for her than I did at the same age.)
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I second the recommendation to visit College Confidential. The Parents Forum is useful, as is the Financial Aid forum. If your public high school doesn’t have a deep guidance department, the parents on CC can help you build a list. Stay away from the Chances threads.
Do consider Honors colleges at state universities. Search for Barrett Honors College at Arizona State for an example. If he makes National Merit, there are quite a few universities which offer generous scholarships, up to full rides.
Some of them offer a liberal arts experience within a large state university. You’ll have to track down listings of the SAT/GPA stats of the honors colleges; I believe they raise the average for the whole university.
Good websites: College Board’s Big Future, College Navigator.
I’m not entirely morally comfortable with the limited-access better college within the state system, but that’s a different debate.
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I’m very happy to live in New York, where there is a wide variety of good state school options for my kids. I’m also glad that I learned from my own college experience that where you go is not as important you think when you’re in high school. I went to the school that offered me a full ride even though I was less than impressed with it, and had an amazing experience there. This leaves me feeling calmer about the decisions my high schooler will be making in a few years… I know he doesn’t have to obsess over finding the One Perfect School, since there are dozens in the region where he’d do just fine.
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Yes to the great schools in New York. Any of the SUNYs are fabulous.
re: the four year graduation rate. I wouldn’t feel so strongly about that number, if I saw a bunch of kids taking longer to graduate because they were doing cool things. Last year, I did some reseach on colleges for the Atlantic and talked to college administrators. That 4 year grad rate was really tough at some schools, because the kids were just fucking around. The five or six year plan really kills kids who take out loans.
I was fooling around with the elite private school websites this morning. Many have financial aid calculators. On paper, we look like we’re doing well, but we started very late, have little savings beyond the 401K, and bought a home very late, thanks to grad school. These calculators took that info into account, which surprised me. Jonah would have a free ride to Dartmouth. Interesting.
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Good to do these calculators — and to know when preparing.
Darthmouth is the kind of school where those running trophies might make a difference for access, and, if the aid works out right, might be affordable, too, sometimes more affordable than other schools that have lower tuitions. All the Ivy’s, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Amherst, Williams (I think), Swarthmore, Haverford — i.e. rich schools that have low acceptance rates are worth checking out on generous aid.
It’s also true that at most of those colleges, people won’t get aid if their income is greater than 250K or so, even if they haven’t been earning that for very long, don’t have much in assets, etc (as is the case if they have a great deal of non-retirement assets) (I once tried to do a graph, of assets/income to see where the aid spots were).
And, regarding the running it’s worth reading up on recruitment because it can provide access to Ivy-type colleges, which then offer generous aid. It’s a different world than NCAA Division I helmet sport recruitment, but it plays an important role in access for lacrosse, sailing, golf, running, . . .
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We know a helmet sport player who is also an ivy-type student, who is participating in lower level recruitment activity for ivy-type schools (i.e. attending their ivy sport camp, putting up highlight videos at recruitment websites, etc.).
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bj said:
“I once tried to do a graph, of assets/income to see where the aid spots were.”
That’s so funny! And such a good idea!
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Are you thinking these thoughts because of PSATs? S just took them a few weeks ago.
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Yes, Jonah took them. It’s kinda time to start thinking about this stuff a bit. We’ve got the SUNYs and the College of New Jersey — excellent public schools — so I’m not that worried. I’m trying to get him excited by talking about all the cool things that happen when you go to a good school. He has very “meh” teachers this year, so he needs boosts like this.
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HAHAHA! That was amusing. I should pretty much expect to pay everything to send my kid to Cornell. On the other hand, we do have money set aside for the kids’ education, but it’s under $100K each.
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There’s time.
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I have a daughter looking at second tier women’s colleges. Her grades are all over the place but she’s a talented creative writer who does some interesting volunteer work. On paper, we’re not eligible for any financial aid but she has gotten some surprisingly generous merit aid from a number of schools. If you’re in academia, you will ask different questions re: the college applications and will look at different schools as a result.
My husband and I were laughing last night when our daughter began reeling off statistics about which schools have larger endowments — she’s heard my husband and me talking about which schools in our area are not exactly financially healthy and how that impacts programs and apparently she’s been paying attention.
We always look at things like where faculty publish, whether or not they attend conferences in their fields, whether or not they are winning national awards.
Look at the book ‘colleges which change lives’ for some lesser-known gems which still have fantastic programs. (I was completely captivated by that philosophy school for young men out in the middle of the desert which was featured in the documentary ‘Ivory Tower’).
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I’ll second the “Colleges that change Lives” book — my daughter is now in 7th grade, and I intend to give her a copy in a couple of years, since we live in a school district that promotes crazy Ivy-League worship (and competitiveness), when I keep thinking she would be much happier at one of the Midwest SLACs, assuming they give us a bit of help on the financial end.
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I went to a “college that changes lives” and it did. Rhodes College, fyi. Also, worked at Bryn Mawr College–women’s college. And while I had a miserable time there on the staff side, the school itself has some excellent programs and faculty. Most of the alums I know loved it.
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Keeping him within a five-hour drive seems a little limiting, though I guess not so much in the Northeast. Out here in the middle west, we give in-state tuition to residents of all our bordering states, and this is true for other state universities in the region – not sure about there. And if he’s got some kind of a niche – running, music, whatever – or knows what he wants to study, there are all sorts of good scholarship possibilities, often not very well advertised.
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Yes, anybody outside the dense NE would find five hours pretty limiting.
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S will be encouraged to go afar. She has mentioned San Diego in the past. I like that. 🙂 However, I will want E within an hour’s radius. Pretty sure I will be needed to bring him clean laundry or his favorite cereal or something. Fortunately, my high-end choices range from Brown (hippy-dippy) to MIT (techy) in that radius.
*My spectrummy kid is actually quite independent for a spectrummy kid, but he doesn’t handle transition very well.
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I second af’s observation. If your child is the kind of kid who might thrive at an oberlin or macalester, then being geographically ‘diverse’ might be the push he needs to get some merit money. You don’t get those geography tip points if you’re from nearby. If you can deal with the logistics of plane flights home, etc. You might find that your child does better financially by considering places like Evergreen, Lewis and Clark, Vanderbilt, etc.
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There are about 500 colleges within a five hour drive of New York City. I’m not sure why I would want him to go further than that. I want my kid home on the holidays.
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I like the broadening experience of going away from your home base for college, but it does move children away from their families more than just physically. A recent HS graduate we know just chose MIT over Caltech, moving 2000+ miles away from her parent, though we don’t think that was the reason. But, she will experience a different world from her SoCal home, going to MIT, dealing with east-coasters, and snow, and the T.
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I think it’s probably good for the country for people to gain more information about other regions. There is intelligent life outside the NJ/NY area.
But at the same time, I get that a kid’s going to school out of state puts him on a trajectory where it’s very likely that he’ll wind up living and working far, far away.
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This is totally sexist, but I would fear that sending a boy far away to college might lead to him settling down in that faraway spot with a local girl. In my experience, when two kids from geographically diverse areas get together, they almost always end up near the girl’s family once the kids arrive. Which would suck. I vote for throwing in a little international travel to get the away-from-home experience, but choosing a college close by.
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I also lost a comment today. I’m in PA this week because of my son’s sports injury (surgery tomorrow morning), so that distance from MN has been significant this week. That said, Ursinus, one of those schools that change lives, is small, great for student athletes, solid merit money and good classes. He’s pretty happy there. Well, except for this season-ending injury before the first wrestling meet setback.
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One final point – we should devise a ranking system that helps kids not just choose a college, but choose whether college itself is right for them. Not everyone benefits from college, but the silence around other options is deafening.
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…or right for them right now. College would be totally wasted on a lot of people at 18 who can manage it very well at 22.
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Sorry, guys. Busy with family chores today. But I have a question for commenters who are farther ahead in the college game than we are…
After playing with the calculator, I think we’re going to do well precisely because we have no money saved for college. If we had saved for college and put less into retirement, we would be screwed. Is that correct?
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I think so. Not that I’m ahead of the game, but all the financial people say to save for your own retirement instead of your kids’ education.
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We saved basically zero–sunk it all into the house. We got no financial aid to speak of. Geeky Boy got $5k/year in loans. But we’re at a state school. We sock away as much as we can between payments. We get help from a benefit at Mr. Geeky’s school. And we’re about to go through this again–same timeline as you.
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After playing with the calculator, I think we’re going to do well precisely because we have no money saved for college. If we had saved for college and put less into retirement, we would be screwed. Is that correct?
That’s pretty much right on.
Our family has basically had the same trajectory yours has. Spent our twenties in grad school, spent some time in academia, one person working, one SAHM, two kids (although ours are a bit younger). We aren’t rich-rich, but we have a six figure household income, so comfortably upper middle class. We don’t make a wall street salary, though.
We’ve been *very* frugal, though, and managed to put away a fair amount for retirement and college. So when I went to the same Dartmouth calculator that said your contribution is zero and ran our numbers with our kids advanced to near-college age it said we had an expected contribution of ~50%, which works out to north of $30K a year.
Now I think we could *probably* pull that off, with diligent savings and more frugality. And if my kids get into Dartmouth or someplace like that and have a good reason they want to go there then I’ll happily pay and consider it my way of repaying my parents for *my* education. Still, it makes me throw up in my mouth a bit when I realize that my reward for not taking many vacations or remodeling our house or eating out much and economizing in general is that I will be paying out an extra $150-200K to send my kids to school, a decent portion of which will go towards subsidizing the financial aid of other upper middle class kids whose parents were more profligate. It makes you think…
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There doesn’t seem to be any point of saving for college to the point of sacrifice (based on my limited research yesterday). If you are wealthy and have a lot of equity in your home, then savings are necessary. But anyone who makes less than 200K, probably shouldn’t save. Is that true?
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That limit seems way too high for most of the country. For example, anybody who bought a house in my neighborhood 20 years ago and didn’t take out equity in a refinancing would easily have $125k in equity. I’d bet you could count the number of them with household incomes over $200,000 on one hand.
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It would be interesting to tie this in to the article about state colleges supporting the wealthy (though I am skeptical that many wealthy people come to state colleges, or at least my own). We’ve been very concerned about keeping costs reasonable for people in the lower economic brackets, but maybe once we do that, the middle or even upper middle class will stop saving for college.
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I believe the evidence is pretty solid that raising state college tuition decreases access to people in lower income brackets. I’ve seen several analyses, though I’m not finding good links right now. There are case studies, showing, for example, that when U Michigan raised tuition with the promise of more aid, the proportion of low income students decreased significantly. And, there are comparison studies showing that schools in states like North Carolina that keep tuition low, have higher proportions of lower income students than those states (like California) that have been shifting more of the costs to students.
In theory a very good endowed aid fund (one that was locked in, highly publicized, and predictably guaranteed) might provide aid sufficient to offset tuition increases, but I wouldn’t count on it even then, because of psychological barriers.
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I’m not further along, but am somewhat obsessed with the issue of college and college access (more politically than personally. The first statement I agree with is that you should fund retirement first. That being said, access to schools will depend on the money that you have saved/the money you can pay into the future. If one is comfortable with affordable options (state schools, that can be paid for with current income) not saving works. Those schools can then be a financial “safety” that you and your children are comfortable with.
If on the other hand, you and your child feel that some traits are needs (say, a small school, or a school in a particular area, and your state options don’t offer those choices), saving money is necessary. There are some universities that are very generous, to people who make under 200K. But, those schools are few, and their policies could change at any time. So relying on, say, getting into Harvard, or Amherst, and having those options be affordable is unwise (and the threshold for even those schools could change). And, there’s the group of people who make over 250K, who are still only living barely within their means and don’t feel they have extra income. They won’t be getting aid, and still can’t afford 50K/year for their kids’ education. If one might be one of those people, you have to save, even if you aren’t yet making that money.
Generous aid made my attendance at elite college (and, I think, though I know the numbers less well, private high school) affordable. I appreciated the aid, but want my kids to be able to chose college without the uncertainty, so we are saving. But we long ago reached the point where we were likely to be full pay.
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Laura, I recommend you try out Princeton’s Financial Aid Estimator.
From my years of reading college information for parents, colleges vary wildly in what they count, and don’t count, in awarding (or not) financial aid. Princeton’s FA estimator includes a field to specify payments for private schooling/daycare/afters-school expenses for the Princeton applicant’s siblings. Princeton does not include equity in the family’s home, nor payments to retirement accounts, in the calculations. There is a spot to specify whether or not the applicant will graduate from a NJ public school.
At the more elite colleges, I have the impression that they have the personnel to discuss situations which don’t fit neatly into forms. For example, a family member with ongoing unusual medical expenses, or taking care of elderly relatives, or a small family business.
@JRLRC, I read the thread on branding yesterday. From my viewpoint, the commenter who pointed out that US colleges do have brand identities is correct. We don’t notice it, perhaps, because college sports are such a part of the culture. Anecdotally, my kids do tell me they have/had classmates for whom a college’s athletic success was an important factor, even for students who knew they wouldn’t be playing for the college.
I differ from the academics on the thread. After visiting so many colleges, I appreciate good branding. Not schlock mottoes and cheesy mascots. A good marketing approach summarizes true aspects of each college. Really good marketing turns off the applicants who wouldn’t fit the college. For example, Northeastern’s info session and tour explained their co-op system in great detail. For lots of kids (and parents) that’s very, very interesting. It’s not what my current senior wants to do right now, so for him it was a turn-off. That’s good.
Now, if you want a free education, you can check out the service academies. It’s not free, of course, because graduates serve in the armed forces. If it’s a possible dream, though, look up the process, because it’s quite involved, including fitness checks and interviews.
I agree with _Colleges that Change Lives_. Also, _Looking Beyond the Ivy League_, and _The Hidden Ivies_. For comic relief, _Crazy U_, and _The Neurotic Parent’s Guide to College Admissions_. The last author has a blog.
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“If it’s a possible dream, though, look up the process, because it’s quite involved, including fitness checks and interviews.”
Not to mention getting nominated.
One of my cousins got in to a service academy. His Tiger Mom (avant la lettre) got him a recommendation from a local Indian chief, as I recall. (Cousin didn’t last–it was not a good fit, but he did do well at a state college and is doing more than fine professionally.)
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I just ran calculators myself, and I don’t think it’s as simple as 200K income, though we might have different opinions of when the advice makes sesnse. At Claremont-McKenna, Brown, and Boston College, entering in 200K income, 20K savings, and 100K equity in a house comes to the net price of each of those schools being around 50K. My parameters are arbitrary, and I’m sure, different from yours; the schools you’re testing might be different, or our definition of affordability, but I don’t think it’s wise to make the general statement that at 200K or less, saving for college is irrelevant.
Maybe, on the other hand, the advice is saving for college what one can for college, by scrimping and saving, but not saving 200K is irrelevant, since having saved 20K or so that you can spend on college will come off of the aid, rather than the 200K expected family contribution (over 4 years).
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I love the neurotic guide, which I found hilarious. It is very centered in a particular milieu, though the LA base, rather than the NE base might add some novelty.
(I think I’ve quoted the hypothetical advice to the Tiger Mom before — that she’s messed up in training her half asian children in a stereotypic instrument and giving them the wrong parents, but maybe she can give them a hook by writing a book about how she harassed them into super-achievement and burned their stuffed animals).
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“But anyone who makes less than 200K, probably shouldn’t save. Is that true?”
I don’t see the rationale of that. A lot of financial aid “awards” consists of loans. And of course most schools don’t meet full need. $200k income doesn’t qualify for much aid at all at many schools.
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Daughter who is a junior in college, son who is a senior in high school, so I have some very recent exposure to the financial aid decisions.
But anyone who makes less than 200K, probably shouldn’t save. Is that true?
I would say, not true. If you make over $100,000 and have little savings, most of the aid your college student will be offered will be a variety of loans. You are going to be expected to contribute a great deal out of current cash flow. That said, most private schools with a sticker price of ~$50,000-$60,000 (tuition/room/board) are going to discount that at least $10,000-$20,000 for a B+ or better student.
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took my so-far-only college grad 10 years to finish. he has no debt and paid for half of it himself. his father paid for the other half with savings bonds and cash gifts. he attended the university of maryland, a decent state school, and lived at home.
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I wouldn’t count on not saving as a strategy. Both of our kids got about 50% in presidential/merit scholarships, and we’ve been paying about 2x our mortgage 10 months a year for college costs (only 2.5 more years to go!). If we weren’t paying it, the colleges would be expecting us to take out PLUS loans — Tufts and Barnard offered our daughter about $5000 (it was 10% of the cost then). I think we were expected to pay around 35% of our income for some of the schools. So we sent the kids out looking for merit money. Or offered to pay for them at the U of MN (not relevant, she had a full ride offer there, but did not want to see anymore snow).
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Really interesting. I talked to a friend who is a personal finance expert yesterday. She said those calculators should not be trusted. As some of the commenters said, over 100K and no savings does not lead to a free ride, despite the tuition calculators. I need to do more research.
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I ran Harvard’s calculator, at its web site. It’s simple and doesn’t ask a lot of questions: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator. (in fact, it sounds a bit like the revision of federal aid calculations that Senators Alexander & Bennet were floating in the NY Times op ed: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/opinion/simplifying-fafsa-will-get-more-kids-into-college.html, a simplified FAFSA that uses only income & family size, though Harvard’s also uses non retirement/non house assets).
250K, full pay, at $63000/year.
This is for a family of 4, with no assets — other than house or retirement, which isn’t asked, and one child in college. I don’t think this calculator is wrong, with these numbers. I think where the calculators might go “wrong” is when there are special circumstances (large medical expenses, disability, unusual assets, self-employment, family owned businesses). For simple finances, though, Harvard’s calculator does not predict a free ride, though it’s pretty generous for those making under 150K, generous enough that it’s less expensive than most state colleges.
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Ha, not much better than the Cornell one for us. Oh well. UMass Amherst is a lovely state university.
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Oops, my Harvard numbers got squished, because I’d used mathematical characters:
Harvard’s calculator is really simple as a function of income:
less than 60K, expected contribution $4600 (less than every state school)
between 60K and 150K, $1000 more for every 10K more of income (about).
between 150K and 250K, $3500 more for every 10K more of income (about)
greater than 250K, full pay, at $60000/year.
Also, since we’re talking about savings, specifically, I think a lot of decent-income folks (I’ll use 150K of income as the descriptor), think the math is more complicated than it is (absent special circumstances). Income plays a big role in the awarding of aid (at the “meets need” colleges), with savings playing a secondary role. In the example above, 10% of income over 60K is contributed to Harvard; 35% of income over 150K.
I ran the same calculator with a 150K income and different levels of savings:
Saving up to 100K in retirement assets doesn’t change the family contribution (it’s still $19,600). Each additional 50K after 100K of savings raises the expected contribution by $2500 (5%); At 500K of savings, the expected contribution is about 40K. At a million dollars of savings, the family with 150K is expected to be full pay.
Savings includes non retirement cash & investments, business/farm equity, and real estate equity (independent of the family home).
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One more late data point. After the first year, the aid formula does not ask about or consider student loan indebtedness of the student. So borrowing a lot of money for school doesn’t make you more needy as you advance in college as I would have thought. For parents, the CSS asks about their own outstanding student debt (from their college days). Money you borrow for your children does not, again, make the family qualify for more need. HOWEVER, any mortgage debt does decrease the parent expected contribution. So it seems like you are more likely to qualify for some need-based aid if you take out home equity loans instead of parent education loans.
It all adds up to students in families making over $100,000 with low or no savings are not going to get much need based aid. They will be offered token need aid and likely some merit aid, then it’s mostly loans and work study, and their parents will be offered education loans and/or encouraged to borrow privately (home equity or otherwise).
I remember that one of the college aid supplement apps (maybe Northwestern?) we filled out three years ago asked for make/model/age of all your household’s vehicles. I presume that if you have a stable full of BMWs and Mercedes, they look askance at your request for aid regardless of the balance in your saving account. They also ask what gift assistance the parents are receiving; for example, if your parents (the student’s grandparents) help pay your rent or mortgage or day care expenses, or you regularly receive gifts, you are supposed to disclose that. Not sure how that would be auditable, however, since it wouldn’t show up on the parents’ tax return
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