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Comment by commandlinefan | Hacker News Reader

> they would need to have inherited to feel financially secure

It seems ridiculous to most of us, but I can see how it happens. I grew up pretty poor - my father was a police officer and my mother didn't work because she had to watch the four of us. But I graduated with a degree in CS in '95 (if you're thinking about graduating with a degree in CS, try to do it in '95 because that may be the best possible year to do it) and am much better off financially now than my family was when I was growing up. Still, I keep worrying about my kids: I can pay to send them to college, but I can't afford, say Harvard or MIT. I have to keep reminding myself that they're far better off than I was at that age and I managed to turn out OK - I think part of it is that I end up comparing my situation with the people around me, many of whom are far better off than I am.

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The average software engineer makes around 100k. If you have been working for 20+ years, has it been difficult for you to save up enough money for college?

Not during at least three quarters of the mentioned period and not for every location even today.

> save up enough money for college

Depends on the college. MIT says to expect to spend ~ $70K/year. $100K * 20 years = 2 million. Two kids * 4 years = $560K. That's a little over 1/4 (before taxes). So yes, it would have been difficult to save up that much money. I have enough to send them both to a public in-state school debt-free, but not an elite private school.

What in gods name could they be spending $70k a year on?! They hire a private teacher for every student?

I don't know MIT but my first reaction is that number probably does include room & board, which in a college town might be $20k a year.

$50k a year in tuition is still not a bargain, of course.

Not at all, considering my tuition was €1500, with the total my university received for me (with government supplement) being around €5000 / year.

I really cannot imagine what they’d do with that kind of money. Besides build super fancy buildings of course.

Professors don't make much these days, but check out the salary for university administrators in the US. The top of the food chain has quite nice compensation, and the amount of administrators is probably too high.

Universities also compete on who has the best food and nicest dorms. Prospective student often tour campuses, so having a pretty one with lots of rose bushes, ivy, and brick is good for recruiting. That all costs money.

Another thing is that elite private universities often have strong need-based financial assistance (discounts). MIT, for example, claims that the average need-based scholarship is about $47k (on tuition of 53k). They also claim 31% attend tuition-free.

Making a small inference: Those who actually pay the full $53k in tuition are helping those who pay nothing.

> Making a small inference: Those who actually pay the full $53k in tuition are helping those who pay nothing.

Possibly, though it's also possible that those who have paid into the University's endowment in the past are helping those who pay nothing.

My kids are getting to college age and its worth considering that MIT has 11376 students whereas google claims there are 19.6 million college students in the USA at this time. So if distributed purely randomly, in the "everyone MUST go to college" USA, something like 99.942% of kids will not be paying MIT tuition.

Another thing to consider is if you're investing $280K in the MIT brand, do they offer any bachelors degrees worth $280K other than maybe CS and pre-med?

I get your point, but the bursars for those other colleges didn't seem to get the memo that they aren't MIT.

The thing is, MIT's tuition is fairly typical for a private university. If anything, MIT (and other elite private universities) offer better discounts than lower-ranked schools.

I would argue that it's hard to save enough for college at any income, due to need-based financial aid (aka perfect price discrimination by ogopolists). Most need-based systems take into account parents' income and college savings, and children of software engineers in particular are going to be near the part of the curve where that starts to bite.

I randomly chose Princeton's financial aid calculator because it was close to the top of Google. For a family with two working parents, two kids (one entering college), and $250k in home equity in Illinois (the middle of the USA):

* For a $100k/year SWE + a $25k/year something else and no college savings the expected family contribution is $30k/year

* The same family with $250k saved in a 529 college savings plan is $45k/year

* For a $125k/year SWE + a $50k/year something else and no college savings the expected contribution is $50k/year

* The same family with $250k saved in a 529 college savings plan is $66k/year

* The same family with $450k in home equity is expected to pay $75k/year (I guess you're expected to take out a home equity loan to pay for college).

* Make the family renters with $50k/year income (30k+20k), and their contribution drops to $4.4k/year.

The point is: The more you save, the more you need to save. And the more you make, the more you need to make.

That's not to say need-based tuition is bad policy. But, it does mean that "surely it's easy to pay for college with your level of income" doesn't really come into play until you reach the top 1-2% of income.

Everyone below that is going to have their tuition adjusted to make the out of pocket cost painful but bearable, and the average SWE isn't a 1%-er.

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