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Hey yall. I'm looking to attend either Stanford or Harvard at this point (and Yale if I get in). Leaning towards Stanford.

I graduated college a couple years ago and have been working in the finance industry, but I don't have too much saved up. Or at least not enough to make a dent out of tuition.

My parents make around ~$250K per year combined and they have a bunch of non liquid assets.

How much financial aid would I reasonably expect with this background?

I've applied for aid at both S and H - you'll be getting nothing once household income > $180k. So given your parents are in the 200s, I would expect no aid whatsoever, or maybe a tiny amount of minimal aid.

I don't have any personal experience on the matter, but I think it would be helpful to point out that your parents are by no means middle class. The median household income (including both parents) in the United States is roughly 59K per year. 250K would put a household at the 95th percentile, so your parents would be in the top 5% of all US households.

My parents ( dad and stepmom) have a combined income of $245,000. Georgetown did not include my stepmoms income in their calculations and just used my dads income. He makes $140k. I have 2 siblings in undergrad and I got a substantial financial aid package.

Not sure where that's middle class, maybe NY or CA (even there that is pushing it), but for the majority of the rest of America, that's not middle class.

There will be substantially poorer applicants for whom they'll prioritize financial aid. Just being honest. Especially when looking at HYS, which have no real incentive to offer financial aid.

My parents make ~$60K total and have no significant assets. I got a decent amount of aid from Columbia. Nothing too major though, and some of it was probably merit aid.

I can't imagine they'd have given me anything if my parents made 4x what they do. Granted, $250K probably puts your parents in the bottom-third of HYS-admits parent's incomes, but I don't think that counts for anything.

Important to remember that HYS, unlike Columbia and other mentioned schools, don’t offer merit based aid, only need based so with your parents salary you will not get a scholarship from those three.

The median household income is $60,000. $250,000 is solidly upper middle class. You're not going to get financial aid and you don't deserve any.

But to answer your question, a friend of mine making $30K per year as a paralegal before enrolling at HLS got $19K per year in need-based aid; her aid would have dropped by $10K had she done biglaw but she didn't.

White Dwarf wrote:My parents make ~$60K total and have no significant assets. I got a decent amount of aid from Columbia. Nothing too major though, and some of it was probably merit aid.

I can't imagine they'd have given me anything if my parents made 4x what they do. Granted, $250K probably puts your parents in the bottom-third of HYS-admits parent's incomes, but I don't think that counts for anything.

What's decent? My parents made $27,000 and NYU gave me only $20,000 per year, with a $10,000 3L penalty for doing biglaw. Should I hate them even more?

Lawgirl811 wrote:My parents ( dad and stepmom) have a combined income of $245,000. Georgetown did not include my stepmoms income in their calculations and just used my dads income. He makes $140k. I have 2 siblings in undergrad and I got a substantial financial aid package.

Right, I'm sure that aid was merit aid and not need-based aid (unless you were over 30 and your parents' income wasn't considered as a result). No way any school would award need-based aid to someone under 30 with parents making a quarter million per year.

https://nypost.com/2018/12/22/the-exodu ... dle-class/

"New York City’s middle class comprises 48 percent of city residents, with median annual incomes between $30,000 and $60,000.

Thirty-one percent make lower incomes, [between $0 and $29,999] . . . ."