The myth of a top-notch education costing six-figures is getting a little old. The price tag is over $200k. The actual cost is under $50k, with the price dropping as you go to school with bigger endowments/better financial aid. Many schools graduate students with less than $20k in debt. At current rates, students pay about $100-200 a month to pay off these loans on time. Just some facts.
I came from a upper-middle class family. We were wealthy enough that qualifying for financial aid at an ivy was basically impossible. We were poor enough (with 3 of us in college at once) that it wasn't possible.
This was particularly problematic because my dad (a military doctor) had only been out of the military for a couple of years. Meaning the salary he we were being pegged at for financial aid was something he had only been earning for 2 years or so. He mad significantly less in the military.
Point being: For some folks, in some situations.. the cost is well beyond reach.
I don't know when you graduated, but a few of the very top schools with huge endowments (e.g., Harvard) have started expanding the range of their financial aid program to cover more middle-class families, like (it sounds) yours. This is a pretty new phenomena though, in the past ~5 years.
The Ivys and liberal arts places I know take multiple children going to school at the same time well into account. I'm sorry for the trouble, but I'm not sure if you didn't look into it, or if you are talking about a situation well into the past. That's just not the case anymore.
EDIT: Hell, look at the comment below; the net price calculator (http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/) even has a drop-down for number of children in college.
The issue with CMU is that, essentially, they don't have much money. Their endowment is much smaller than most of the schools they compete with. In terms of the "top" CS schools, they're probably a bit of an outlier.
That's one of the reasons I ended up not going to CMU. Well, that and the fact that I didn't want to trade the Bay Area for Pittsburgh :P.
Yep, Ivy league undergrad here. I came from a lower middle class family, total cost of year about 45K with my family expected to pay about 10K per annum for the four years of college, with an additional 4.5K debt/year on top of that. Took me about 7 years after college to pay off my 18K in debt (I also locked in my interest rates at under 4%) -- I think that was a 137 dollar payment a month if I paid it off at the minimum rate.
I was in the same situation as an undergrad at an Ivy. It has only improved since then. A student starting at an Ivy today with a similar family situation will graduate owing nothing.
Harvard has a neat little "Net Price Calculator" which shows pretty clearly that middle class families can get quite a lot of aid: http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/
Harvard has substantially revamped its financial aid in recent years. Families with income below $60k pay no tuition. Even going as high as $150k-$180k, the expected family contribution is lowered to about 10% of income.
Yeah, came in here to post this. Yale is basically free for someone whose family makes the median household income in the US. Financial aid doesn't phase out until well over $250k household income.
