A Hard Test in College Finances

Parents Forum
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<p>"That's the p.r., I doubt its the reality. I'll bet 2-parent families where the parents are wage-earners and earn under $60K get that."</p>

<p>On another thread on PF there's a link to a previous presentation to Stanford's academic senate by Dean of Admissions Shaw, describing intended F.A. policy changes, to wit: Zero EFC for familes <45K, and "smoothing" F.A. for families 45K-60K. I have not investigated "smoothing." Just throwing that out there. Others may have specific experience with this. And I also don't know what Stanford's (not an Ivy) FA policy was previously, per income bracket.</p>

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<p>CalMom >>>I don't want to take this thread too far off track, but I know enough about the need based system to know that one reason that colleges make bold offers like that is that they don't have all that many students who actually qualify.<<<</p>

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<p>I bet you're right. I bet that HYP don't really get that many low income & academically qualified applicants that would be able to qualify for those "free tuition" offers. </p>

<p>BTW... what is the actual claim ? Is it just free tution?? or is it free tuition, ROOM, BOARD, books, travel, etc for students with families making less than $60k???</p>

<p>Cuz, if it HYP, etc, only provide free TUITION, then many low income families know that there is a lot more costs to college than just tuition - and therefore, they wouldn't apply.</p>

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<p>What the heck is that??? Is it "Ironing out" the little nuances and difficulties that might exist in families with those incomes???</p>

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<p>I can't speak for other schools, but at Harvard about 25% of the incoming class of 2011 were included in the new initiative where families earning <$60 pay nothing and those earning $60-80K pay very little. 25% seems like a pretty respectable percentage to me.</p>

<p>And the expense covered is not just tuition, it's everything. How it actually works is that for those families that earn less than $60K the EFC is $0. Everything else is picked up by the school with the exception of what the school expects a student to contribute through earnings in a summer job. The current expectation is that the student should be able to earn between $1500 and $2300 dollars toward his/her own education over the summer. So the grant for a given year is a full-ride minus only $1500-2300. </p>

<p>Source:
<a href="http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/05.17/03-admissions.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/05.17/03-admissions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>What Coureur wrote sounds right. S has a roommate on full ride. He worked as a proctor for the summer school (he had free meals and housing during summer school).</p>

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<p>But how do they define an income under $60K? My point is that the self-employed, the divorced, the remarried, etc. are probably not getting such easy treatment. They're paying based on their imputed income, not their real income.</p>

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<p>"BTW... what is the actual claim ? Is it just free tution?? or is it free tuition, ROOM, BOARD, books, travel, etc for students with families making less than $60k???"</p>

<p>For the Ivies that gave offers to my D, it has meant room, board, tuition, in full. Books & travel are the student's/family's responsibility, in the sense that these come out of earned work-study income. (The U places them into campus work-study jobs for a few hours per week.) There is an expected "summer savings" component ($1500-2500), but usually the full amount is not achieved by most students, and the U has been taking care of the gap in that amount from year to year, via non-loan grants.</p>

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<p>A bit off topic, but relevant I think: At Williams we are receiving need based aid (not full ride, but we don't qualify, even by Ivy standards above) but S does not need to pay for any books. Texts that are frequently used are available at a library received for financial aid students. He just goes and takes the book out and gets to keep it the entire semester. If he wanted to include it in his own personal library he'd have to buy it. Other non-text book books, like paperbacks for English class, he gets a voucher for and pesents it at the bookstore like cash. These books he does get to keep. He asked we bring any we had in our library with us when we go visit because he didn't want to take advantage of the school's generosity. The $500 I gave him for books are his living expenses now (though he does seem less motivated to do work study job now that he has spending money.) See sad face here. I wanted this kid to learn that not everything is going to be provided for him. No such luck! Sister at Barnard works hard for spending money, but she spends far more than I could afford to give her in NYC!</p>

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<p>I don't know the details of how they calculate income, but the fact that they awarded such support to ~25% of the current incoming class (with a similar percentage last year) suggests that they aren't being tight with the money or setting rules or barriers that make very hard for families to qualify. These results are certainly not consistent with this rather cynical view expressed in post #120:</p>

<p>"...but I know enough about the need based system to know that one reason that colleges make bold offers like that is that they don't have all that many students who actually qualify."</p>

<p>In Harvard's case they made the bold offer and are in fact following through on it.</p>

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<p>UVA also has a program like this which sounds very helpful.</p>

<p>I would guess the "smoothing" aid means it is not 100% covered at one income and nothing but loans at $1 more??</p>