Data: the 2027-28 Student Aid Index worksheet (Formula A) published by Federal Student Aid, computed line by line for a two-parent family of four with one child in college and no assets counted. Cost medians are the US Department of Education's College Scorecard 2024 release, across 1,797 public and 1,354 private nonprofit institutions. Family income shares are Census CPS ASEC 2025, table FINC-07, whose top bracket is $250,000 and over, which is why the $300,000 row says "inside the top 14%" rather than a share of its own.

Tools: Python, pandas, matplotlib.

One thing the headline compresses, so I want to state it rather than have it found. The bar is the Student Aid Index, not a bill. It decides how much of a school's price is yours, so it only bites where a school costs more than the bar does.

Detailed methodology at worthmydegree.com/welcome?src=re

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Additional-Ant-6158

15 comments

  1. So basically the feds think your kid’s college fund is just whatever’s left after you pay rent and buy groceries.

  2. Damn imagine if we taxed the fucking rich and then made university education, among other things, publicly funded rather than all [this stupid bullshit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1w4ng4h/comment/p7ol0pt/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). It’s almost like it would be easier (more efficient / economical) and higher quality rather than… literally the only thing the current system does better is siphoning more money to the wealthy and preventing any kind of socioeconomic mobility.

    Like it’s literally a choice between

    – give the people with unlimited bars of chocolate more chocolate, and also kill the poor people

    ^(also as time goes on the people with unlimited bars of chocolate become an ever small portion of society and all the poor people, which if you understand simple math, the proportion is inversely correlated to the proportion of rich people, effectively become slaves with shorter lives – and the wealthy don’t get longer lives because there is a limit and also as a couple of the wealthy have recently learned, if you don’t share we take it)

    or

    – everyone gets as much chocolate as they need, with a little bit extra every once in a while, as a treat

  3. Two comments in and we’re already saying that college should be free, and that somehow you have to pay the noted amount out of THAT YEAR’S SALARY. You know, because your kid just shows the fuck up at 18 to introduce themselves and ask for cash.

  4. College has only ever been a way to gatekeep the middle class. The tides are rising.

  5. Not gonna lie, this seems fairly reasonable to me… I think a 100k income should be able to swing 8k a year for some major, foreseeable goal like college. Obviously it’s not likely if you’re making 100k this year you made it 4 years ago, but you’ve had years to start putting aside some sort of money, knowing that your kid’s college tuition is coming up. Based on the text, if you’re making 250k/yr and have 150k in assets, you should be putting your own kids through school. You’ve likely been making six figures for a long time… Not the type that I need to be subsidizing. If you don’t have enough on hand then take out a loan. You can afford it.

  6. I called it the “Middle class hole” when I graduated in 2004. My parents made too much for me to get Federal aid, but not enough to have been able to save anything for college for me.

  7. More AI posts. 🤮 i’d recognize Claude‘s writing style anywhere.

  8. 80% of families make over 50k per year?

    68% of families make over 70k per year?

    57% of families make over 90k per year?

    Why does this seem to not align with other data I’ve seen? Am I just unfamiliar with the data? Just seems off?

  9. Interesting. This almost exactly mirrors my experience with two kids through private colleges in recent years.

  11. That’s about how much I made and how much I had to pay my ex wife for commiting adultery. (Spousal support) at 8 years, I just paid her enough for 2 children’s 4 year degree. I dont have kids. Claude or not – its very expensive.

  12. Do not pay for your child’s college education unless you have funded your retirement goals!! Don’t be dumb – they need to pay for it since they are investing in themselves. You have to be responsible for your own income support in your old age.

    OR you could sit your kid down and tell them, “I’m going to pay for your college education now but then you have to be prepared to pay for me in old age”.

    It’s a choice.

  13. I’m in the highest bracket here but if my daughter doesn’t want to go to state school she better start working on those scholarships. 

  14. I’m putting around 100 away each for two kids a month. Its in a investment account so here is to hoping that enough in 12 years.

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