Threat of debt drives US middle-class families away from private universities

Many families expelled from private schools because their income is too high to qualify for financial aid, but too low for rates

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Whenever someone asked, Molly Fisher said he went to Wake Forest University in North Carolina. It is a fact.

Wake Forest

, a small private college 7351 people in Winston-Salem was his first choice because of its size. Molly diplomas were strong enough to enter "She was a bright star in high school," said his mother, Maggie. Enter but was not enough. Molly needed a merit scholarship and was crushed when she n is not coming.

With annual revenues of $ 175,000 to the Fisher family was not entitled to adequate financial assistance based on Molly is applied in colleges - in addition to private Wake Forest, asked the University American public schools and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

both parents work. Maggie runs her own business as a health consultant and her husband is in advertising. They set aside a certain sum of money to the university of their two children, $ 20,000 a year, but were clear with the two girls who were to be responsible for all costs above and beyond. When Molly realized that suffer approximately $ 80,000 in debt by the end of his studies, he took his second choice. She is now at UNC Chapel Hill - a solid backup University where he will graduate debt free

Fishermen families are typical of well-educated middle class who are expelled from private schools because their income is too high to receive substantial financial aid and too low to pay the high costs that the university requires .

A recent study in North Carolina, said that 40% of students who were qualified to attend college selectively did not register for one. And money has a lot to do with it. If you look at the situation of fishermen see why. Wake Forest costs about $ 60,000 per year. The fishermen had set aside $ 20,000 per year. Chapel Hill is $ 20,000 per year. Decision.

While the best schools in the country are still able to maintain a "need-blind" application process (for example, if you apply and get in, but can not afford the tuition will take ) the vast majority of students are applying to places with lower provisions and less money to give. This is money, of course, tend to go to lower revenues, leaving the center of the randomization.

It goes without saying that the more children you have, the harder it is to pay. However, universities seem to ignore the family retail, offering more help, if you have a child who is already a degree. Brian Ellerbeck has two son, one is going to college this year, on the other side.

"Tuition has played a role in the choice of the university," he said. Her daughter, Emma, ??got into a "public school", Smith College, SUNY Binghamton, but in fact is. She was very bitter about the decision at the time, given the difficulty he had worked to get to Smith. But her parents told her she could not afford it.

• "Given the misery Smith offered to cover our costs and financial situation, the prospect of spending $ 175,000 of the debt of a four-year degree is just not tenable, Despite the university brand. "

its echoes of complaints from parents who feel that somehow it is expected that the money no matter what. Universities are less the amount of money a family to the amount that might be able to get your hands on.

"The way schools determine the" necessity "and the expectations they bring to the financing of the family (eg, assuming that families have a second mortgage to finance the costs of education) are bad and do not take into account the many demands already made on household budgets, "says Ellerbeck.

Bruce Poch, who was for many years the director of admissions at Pomona College, and is now the director of the university in a private school in Los Angeles Chadwick acknowledges that the middle class is increasingly less attention to private schools. He sees the movement flow all the way to daycare.

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