Stanford just went tuition-free for family incomes under $125K and total assets under $300K,

[Ms. Toad]

7. Good, but not far enough.

They need to take another look at long-term income v. assets. We pinched pennies on a very modest income for most of our daughter's life and managed to build up a fairly sizeable nest egg - unfortunately most of it NOT in retirement accounts because the amount that can be put in a retirement account without the cooperation of an employer is pretty darn small.

But rather than live in a fancy house, with cable TV, smart phones, drive fancy car, and take fancy vacations, we live in a house that we could have bought outright for a year's salary or less, have never had cable TV, got smart phones last year when the first $0 - $10/month wifi-first plans became available, our youngest car is 12 years old, and we mostly vacation at home. The money we saved went into general savings (even though we always thought of it as being for college and retirement).

And - when our daughter went to a pricey college, we paid for being frugal by being denied any financial aid, in large part because we had assets that weren't tucked away in retirement accounts (which we didn't have the ability to create).

It just yanks my chain when financial aid plans punish those who take advantage of modest good fortune by making responsible choices that delay current gratification in favor of making sure there is enough money to keep us in our old age (even if it isn't formally in retirement accounts) and reward those of similar means who don't have a dime socked away for retirement (or were fortunate enough to have cooperative employers).

It just feels too much to me like the scheme they tried implement where I used to teach - in which employees would be encouraged to bank their unused sick days for any co-workers who ran out and became ill. There were truly some who needed spare sick days because of chronic illnesses, but the majority of the individuals I know who ended up running out their sick days and had to take unpaid leave viewed themselves as entitled to 1.25 days a month - and they took them, whether they were sick or not. On the other hand, I had 90+ sick days in the bank when I left after at 11 years, after spending 30 days in the hospital one year.

Grump. grump. grump. Just tired of getting the short end of the stick for being always being the responsible one.