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<p>Strawman.</p>
<p>rentof2…I agree…WAYYYYY to many high schoolers here think the prestige of the college is all that matters…Success, and more importantly happiness in life(whatever that may be) has little to do with what college you graduated from.</p>
<p>geeps-my choice has nothing to do with prestige. My first choice is Smith…my second choice is the University of Alabama…I like them both nearly equally but think Smith would provide me with great opportunities. I am hopeful to get need based aid to make that a reality, but if not, then it will be Bama.</p>
<p>But, I DO think Smith can give me some opportunities that Bama simply can’t. It’s naive not to think so. Why should i be denied these opportunities?</p>
<p>^ because you can’t afford it?</p>
<p>With some need based aid and merit I should be able to make it work. I’m sorry my mommy and daddy aren’t paying for my college education and I have to put myself through schooling…sorry that finances need to be a concern…</p>
<p>Don’t you think the best and brightest should have their choice of education, regardless of ability to pay…our country needs these kids to achieve</p>
<p>^ don’t be sorry about anything…face reality head on. No one is entitled to a college education…especially their “dream school”. I just don’t understand this sense of entitlement from many here.</p>
<p>geeps…seriously…I don’t feel entitled. I just feel like we deserve a chance. I feel like low income students get written off far too often. </p>
<p>I also think it’s crap that a kid with bad stats who’s full pay gets to go to their "dream school’…but god forbid a low income kid with great stats get to go to theirs</p>
<p>I know I sound bitter…but its frustrating. I understand the reality of my situation…it’s why I have a financial safety…but to basically have to write off 95% of colleges because you can’t pay? that’s not cool.</p>
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<p>Well, yes and no. I do think that the best and the brightest - and the not so good and the not so bright - should be able to have a good education, regardless of their ability to pay. However, this means ramping up the quality of K-12 schools, community colleges, state satellites, flagship programs, and lesser-considered-on-CC privates. It also means more need-based aid at community college, state satellite, and state flagship levels. However, unfortunately, private schools largely get to make their own decisions. This means that they can vow to provide whatever merit and financial need based aid that they would like. I feel that higher education - indeed, decent education at the K-12 level - SHOULD be available to everyone. That doesn’t mean (as much as I would like this to happen) that all colleges have to provide financial aid like Stanford or Yale.</p>
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<p>This is definitely something I agree with. I think the second problem (the first problem is often the family situation, but the best and the brightest - and the just plain determined - can usually overcome that, and besides, there’s not much we can do about it policy-wise) is the quality of K-12 education. Low-income students are often shunted to the worst schools in K-12. This echoes with lower SAT scores, etc. Not to mention that low-income students are sometimes shunted from ECs. In this case, “you get what you paid for” is not fair, since the students can only do so much to improve their background. Low-income students can’t up and move to the Boston suburbs.</p>
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<p>While I agree with you (95% of everything is written off for me, let alone college), you’re right that you sound bitter. A better approach is to consider what can be changed, even if we’re not making policy changes right now. College in America is a business. I don’t see that changing (which I consider shameful), so most families in this country are writing off 95% of colleges - and some of them are writing off 100% of them.</p>
<p>^ no kid with bad stats will go to their dream school, even if paying full…</p>
<p>Colleges and universities get a LOT of money from taxes imposed on the general population even though large segments of the population have little hope of attending college.</p>
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<p>R6l…I assume you qualify for a full ride. Smith’s STRIDE merit award ($15,000) is almost irrelevant in your circumstance…although it will eliminate loans. Merit money is not in addition to need-based aid.</p>
<p>If you’re accepted to Smith, rest assured, the aid will be there :)</p>
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<p>[STRIDE</a> award hike aims to grab more top studens - News](<a href=“http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2009/10/08/News/Stride.Award.Hike.Aims.To.Grab.More.Top.Studens-3795839.shtml]STRIDE”>http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2009/10/08/News/Stride.Award.Hike.Aims.To.Grab.More.Top.Studens-3795839.shtml)</p>
<p>^^I"m not quite at a full ride. Our EFC is like 8k-9k(with my dad not working and medical bills, I have no idea what it will be)</p>
<p>^^
Not 8-9K.</p>
<p>Boy this sure has not been our experience so far. We are able to pay full tuition (currently paying full for D1) and D2 who has better GPA and SAT’s was waitlisted at three of the same schools D1 got into 2 years ago including the school the school D1 is a student at! We are fully able to pay for D2 also.
I do believe D2 will end up at the school she is meant to attend.</p>
<p>geeps, I DID discuss it. I gave you my opinion, which is that I don’t spend my time worrying about other people’s money, and I gave you the concept of noblesse oblige. Just because I didn’t give the answer you wanted to hear doesn’t mean I didn’t discuss it.</p>
<p>As a middle class kid with amazing stats, amazing ECs ----the whole package
our student will still be exected to pay more than the lower income kid with lower stats because of “socialized education” in private schools trying to “equalize” things??</p>
<p>Thats not reward based on merit…</p>
<p>if we are going to base educational funding on merit–do it–but as a
non minority
non hardship
kid from the middle class–
these are the ones squeezed out…</p>
<p>The top and bottom have alternatives (pay full boat) or get FinAid–</p>
<p>Living in the US does not mean equal opportunity/equal access because of a birth certificate does it? Doesn’t it mean what you bring to the table–
Why do we think EVERYONE goes to college? What happened to professional trades? Anyone who has built a house will tell you a talented plumber is worth his/her weight in gold. My professional hubby would probably trade his business for an electrical or plumbing business in our city right now.</p>
<p>I am not convinced there is enough merit aid…and do believe the cost of education has sky rocketed–</p>
<p>yet I am not convinced students get what they (and we) are paying for…
…are we seeing truly well-read, thoughtfuly spoken, able to apply it kinds of kids coming out of these schools?
Should every kid go to a college?</p>
<p>fogfog: Have you ever paid for your kid to take piano lessons? Bought uniforms for a soccer team? Given your kid one book for Christmas, and only that?</p>
<p>There are so many minor things that middle-class kids take for granted that HELP them look “better” on paper. These advantages are available to the upper-class, of course, but that’s why financial aid is not a true “socialization”–the rich are always better off. All of the low-income kids I know would gladly have traded families with me. I am so grateful to have happily married parents who place a high value on education. I am so grateful for generous need-based financial aid that will enable me to attend a private liberal arts college, which fits me so well, even as my parents scrimp and borrow to pay our $20k middle-class EFC, when we only started earning above the poverty line a decade ago. I didn’t feel deprived as a kid because I never knew what I was missing–and I’m glad for every low-income parent/student that frequents CC, which provides so much information for no cost but time, so that ignorance won’t lead them to miss the financial aid out there.</p>
<p>Why should our society prioritize need-based aid over merit-based? Because “merit” is determined by indicators that already correlate very highly with wealth. If you can’t afford piano lessons, it’s pretty hard to win a piano competition. If you can’t afford to play on a club soccer team, it’s pretty hard to get D1 coaches’ attention in order to win an athletic scholarship. Few “amazing ECs” don’t require some investment of money, and the poor can’t spare even $50 toward student amusement (“extracurriculars”). Unlike race or gender or any other arbitrary criteria used by colleges in their search for diversity, it’s a pretty sure bet that low-income students have had less access to opportunity than their higher-income peers.</p>
<p>If that is what some people call socialization, then so be it–I’m a proud Canadian, after all, and I don’t see anything wrong with socialism tempered by common sense.</p>
<p>I’m sorry I offended someone (can’t remember who) by ignoring prompts and discussing “tippy top” schools.</p>
<p>The question, “why” was asked.</p>
<p>I was merely trying to distinguish between goals of need based and merit based aid. </p>
<p>This thread puzzles me. </p>
<p>Who is the beef with? </p>
<p>If there are institutions that are willing offer need based aid to enable lower income students to attend, why wouldn’t a lower income student avail herself of this opportunity? </p>
<p>And there are schools who offer significant discounts to academic/athletic stars for them that wants the discount.</p>
<p>And yes, there is public education too, though not every state has a Berkeley, a U Michigan or a UVA.</p>
<p>And CC colleges <em>do</em> provide opportunities when no others pan out.</p>
<p>Is education a meritocracy or a consumer item? It seems that is the basic debate here. </p>
<p>And obviously different folks and different schools align themselves all along the continuum.</p>
<p>So what is the problem? </p>
<p>I teach at CC and see very, very wealthy students attending for various reasons. Would the populace of Nassau County be happy to pay for a multi-millionaire’s kid to attend on the public dime? Doesn’t matter. The kid can. And yes, poorer people are subsidizing the education.</p>
<p>One further point about some folks objecting to “full-pay” parents subsidizing “need-based” kids: at S’s LAC they assert that the actual COA is $80K and even “full-pay” students are subsidized by alumni money. I can’t vouch for the truth of that claim, but that’s what the administration asserts.</p>
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<p>Sounds like rubbish to make full-pays feel better.</p>
<p>At any rate, you have to earn $80,000 to pay $50,000.</p>
<p>If these schools are so good, they shouldn’t charge anything to students and live off of donations from their alumni. This would be an incredibly tax-efficient way to run a school.</p>
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<p>The best and the brightest will thrive wherever they are planted. Sure, attending a top school can make the path smoother, but it should not be an entitlement IMO.</p>
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<p>Well there you have it–life in a socialist country where you have an opportunity for a fine education at a very reasonable price. That makes your posts sound even more entitled to me to tell you the truth. America is not a socialist country, and while many schools have tried to makes themselves meritocracies, our educational system is not one. These schools can not afford to be meritocracies right now. If you’re lucky enough to attend an American school with a near free ride it’s an extreme privilege, not a right.</p>
<p>Where does choice begin and end? I talked to a Wharton classmate today who was lamenting her legacy child’s lesser chances this year because the school clearly needs more full pays and her family needs aid. This is a woman with a Wharton education who chose not to work. Certainly her right to choose, but is her child entitled to the same opportunities as those whose mothers chose to work?</p>