Undergraduate financial aid is calculated based on parental income, with no regard for whether the parents are willing to pay. It doesn’t seem quite fair. People are legally emancipated from their parents at age 18, and younger in some instances. Parents are not expected to provide food and clothing to an 1-year-old, so why should… [Read More]
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Tag: college costs
Paying for High School: Scholarships for Chicagoans
This has proven to be one of the most popular posts on this blog, so it’s time for an update. The good news is that the update comes with more resources! Although the big bills are for college, the reality is that many students are not well served by their public high schools. We could… [Read More]
Paying for College: Paying Off the Mortgage
Whenever I receive an unexpected sum of money, I divide it into four. A quarter goes to random spending (usually clothes), a quarter goes to charity, a quarter goes to savings, and another quarter goes to the mortgage principal. This is in addition to the extra principal payments we make each month. This is a… [Read More]
Paying for College: Admissions and Financial Aid
College admissions isn’t quite as difficult as most people think; once you get past the top 30 or whatever colleges, most students who are reasonably serious and reasonably prepared will be accepted. The real trick is paying for it. Different colleges have different approaches. Some colleges are need-blind: they draw up their freshman class without… [Read More]
Paying for College: Consumption and Investment Spending
This post is a bit of a think piece, but it may give some perspective on educational costs. To start with, in measures of household spending and savings, education is categorized as consumption. The US is on the low end of household savings internationally. We’re also on the high end of college costs relative to… [Read More]