[winflop]

More broadly, there is an sour spot (the opposite of a sweet spot) where family income is high enough to not qualify for the tuition waivers or significant amounts of financial aid but not high enough that the parental contributions don't cause a lot of financial pain.

A kid with a family income of $150,000 - ~$500,000 (that is, the upper middle class kids you refer to) are going to feel it.  You hope that parents are putting money away in anticipation of the expenditures, but it can get ugly, especially if you have multiple kids in college at the same time.

BC

Yep that's us. We put away some but not enough. Fortunately we bought a house in the Bay Area 20 years ago so we have equity to fill the gap. But it means it will take us several more years of working to pay off our mortgage. A relatively small price to pay IMnsHO

[winflop]

More broadly, there is an sour spot (the opposite of a sweet spot) where family income is high enough to not qualify for the tuition waivers or significant amounts of financial aid but not high enough that the parental contributions don't cause a lot of financial pain.

A kid with a family income of $150,000 - ~$500,000 (that is, the upper middle class kids you refer to) are going to feel it.  You hope that parents are putting money away in anticipation of the expenditures, but it can get ugly, especially if you have multiple kids in college at the same time.

BC

Yep that's us. We put away some but not enough. Fortunately we bought a house in the Bay Area 20 years ago so we have equity to fill the gap. But it means it will take us several more years of working to pay off our mortgage. A relatively small price to pay IMnsHO