<p>My friend’s Dad lost her job and she went into the fin aid office asking for some more money. They said there was nothing they could do, but if she was black it would be a different story.</p>
<p>No, I’m not kidding. And this isn’t some rant against affirmative action lol, just keep reading.</p>
<p>Perhaps if your student meets certain criteria (comes from inner city near school, or disadvantaged county near school, etc.) there are certain emergency funds, alumni funds or special need-based scholarship funds that the fin aid office can help you secure. In the cases of elite privates that do not give scholarship money any need-based scholarships may be “separate” from the school’s actual fin aid process but closely tied due to generous alumni and whatnot. But if you do not meet certain criteria then there are less funds available to you. I know my own school does have special scholarship funds for disadvantaged minority students which are built up by alumni dollars, however many students would not qualify despite being economically disadvantaged in the strictest sense. Even just being black might not be enough in all cases…a lot of the money is very specifc, i.e. tied to a specific high school, city, or county.</p>
<p>That is the less conspiracy-based theory…looking at my friend’s Ivy admissions and fin aid packages, it seemed to me that the better students got more financial aid. I.e. the ones they wanted more, got more money. Seems quite sketchy because technically money is not merit-based at many/all of these places, yet no clear divides in income sometimes resulted in startlingly different fin aid packages. But again this is very “the mafia killed John F. Kennedy”. I suppose it’s more likely that the first explanation is true, where special funds/alumni funds can supplement fin aid packages if the student meets the right criteria.</p>