<p>D was accepted into Amherst with some fin aid this year but probably none for the next three years due to only 1 student in school and higher EFC. PC offered her full tuition for all 4 years. She loves Amherst (and we know it is a better school) and is leaning that way but full tuition is hard to pass up given that she will come out of A with some loans and PC with no debt. She is probably looking at grad school either way and it might be nice to have more $$$ for grad school without owing loans from undergrad. What do you all think.</p>
<p>Jessephen, Amherst has a no loan policy. How is your D going to come out of it with them? Do you mean, you as parent’s will come out with debt?</p>
<p>Jessephen, Do both colleges have the curriculum that she is interested in? (I know this may change, but in general does PC have depth in her area of interest?) How else are the two schools the same, different?</p>
<p>Both of mine are going to full-pay schools. We are scrimping to be able to pay. We haven’t taken out loans yet, but I’m afraid we may need to. 20-20 hindsight…I wish D1 had chosen a less expensive school because I’m afraid that I don’t see the value in it right now (she is a junior at said school - not Amherst). D2 will attend Amherst and like you, I expect no FA after next year. I’m hoping I feel better about the “value” of her education than I do about D1’s.</p>
<p>Will you realistically have to take out loans, or, like me, will you scrimp to make the tuition payments? I don’t want D1 to graduate with any loans. She knows grad school is all on her and I’d prefer she have to take out loans for that.</p>
<p>Are these the only two choices? Were there publics there in the mix?</p>
<p>@ GA2012 The info we got from Amherst said loans were available but they do not make them part of your financial package.
@ Shes on her way We will scrimp and save as much as possible but she will probably have some loans
@myth Mom PC no longer has environmental science which she thinks is her major. They used to have it (when we first looked at the school) but the professor left and they did not hire another - hard to believe in the environmental climate we have right now.</p>
<p>Loans are really not the most terrible thing in the world. $20k at 6.8% (if you can get it from the school) paid off over 10 years is only about $250/mo. (Once you get much over that, then I think it is subject to question.)</p>
<p>I think these no-loan policies are poor policy when those funds could instead be going to fund more low-income students who really need it.</p>
<p>I know there’s a raging argument about whether need-blind colleges really are need-blind, but setting that aside for a moment…</p>
<p>With a school like Amherst that makes admission decisions without regard to need, it doesn’t follow that putting loans in student aid packages would free up more money to aid more kids with financial need. I mean, if you get in, they meet your determined level of need. The kids that get in that don’t meet the guidelines for needing financial aid, don’t receive it. It’s not like getting those higher-need kids to take out loans is going to free up money for accepted students without need. Those with need, have theirs met.</p>
<p>I agree that 20K total in student loans is not unreasonable, however, being able to graduate (when, let’s be honest, many students are still going to be starting from scratch in terms of getting on their independent feet) without 20 <em>THOUSAND</em> dollars in debt hanging over them is definitely better. Especially for those that want to go into public service, the arts, teaching, the clergy, or other less-remunerative but still important pursuits.</p>
<p>Or even those that go on to law school. If you pile your law school debt on top of undergrad debt, who is going to be able to do public interest law? The removing of undergrad debt makes more things possible for the students after graduation, rather than all of them having to run off looking for those investment banking gigs. (Not that those are so attractive at the moment. ;))</p>
<p>There is NO evidence that Amherst is need-blind, and, actually, quite a lot of evidence that it isn’t. The first evidence is the obvious one - year after year after year, unless they change policy, they enroll virtually exactly the same number of full-pay students. Statistically, the chances of that happening in a so-called “need-blind” situation approaches zero.</p>
<p>But, more explicitly, when Anthony Marks calls for the admission of more low-income candidates, magically, through the need-blind admissions system they appear on campus, in fact, just one year after he decides it is a priority. </p>
<p>There isn’t a need-blind college in the country (except, arguably, the military academics, Cooper Union, and Olin). The only question is how they use the need information for admissions purposes.</p>
<p>mini,</p>
<p>You’re jumping to conclusions.</p>
<p>“The first evidence is the obvious one - year after year after year, unless they change policy, they enroll virtually exactly the same number of full-pay students.”</p>
<p>Isn’t it likely that the number of full pay students remains the same because higher income people typically produce children who have received a better education at well known private schools? </p>
<p>“But, more explicitly, when Anthony Marks calls for the admission of more low-income candidates, magically, through the need-blind admissions system they appear on campus, in fact, just one year after he decides it is a priority.”</p>
<p>Is there another way to find low income applicants other than looking at their financial information? Consider the Jack Kent Cooke initiative which admits a high percent of community college applicants as transfers. Chances are, people with lower incomes are going to community college. You can also pay attention to other aspects of a students application, i.e geographic location, quality of their high school, the fact that the student might tell them they’re poor in an essay, to determine if someone is “low income”. Technically speaking, these methods are still “need-blind” in the sense that there is no correspondence between admissions and the financial aid office when making a decision.</p>
<p>1) Then the number of higher income kids would go up, rather than remain steady. But it neither moves up nor down, in a way which is statistically impossible in a “need-blind” scenario.</p>
<p>2) Looking for students from Jack Kent Cooke or Questbridge is a way of “prequalifying” students by income, as both programs are explicitly “need-based”. In the case of Questbridge, they know exactly how much aid they will have to provide. Looking at geographic location, etc. is another way of ensuring one is accepting a candidate with or without need.</p>
<p>The only question is HOW the need information is used. And there doesn’t have to be any communication with financial aid office for this to happen, because that communication has happened even before the process starts. The President and the Board of Trustees set both admissions priorities, and have an explicit budget for financial aid for the coming year, to which the admissions office must conform. To their credit, they are professionals, know how to determine need with the information at their disposal, and meet their performance targets.</p>
<p>Not only are they “need aware”, but they actually use that information in their decisionmaking, just the way Marks wanted them to. (In an article in the Williams Alumni Magazine several years ago where a reporter watched the process, the Dean of Admissions actually counted the number of “socio-eq” applicants accepted as the process happened - there was a clear quota or target of which the entire admissions office was well aware, and acting upon.)</p>
<p>(P.S. I think that is a good thing.)</p>
<p>OK point taken.</p>
<p>However, since this is sort of a semantic argument, if one defines “need blind” as “policy in which the admitting institution claims not to consider an applicant’s financial situation when deciding admission.” isn’t there a difference between considering the students LIKELY financial situation and the students ACTUAL financial situation?</p>
<p>P.S. I suppose it doesn’t matter to me as I think Amherst’s current policy is actually superior to a “need blind” policy in the way we’re defining it here.</p>
<p>mini-you are stating what people suspect happens not just at Amherst, but at other elite schools, as well, but there is NO absolute proof of this. However, D, who worked in admission stated categorically that Amherst is need-blind. Because everything in that office must be kept confidential, she gave no details, but she said her work there confirmed this. Have you thought that most ED kids don’t get a lot of FA? That will help keep the numbers where they need them to be.</p>
<p>Then ask your D, categorically, why in the year after Anthony Marks announced a greater commitment to enrolling low-income students, did the number of low-income freshman go up 5.5% (a more than 40% increase) over the previous year.</p>
<p>Questbridge is NOT needblind, in fact, the college knows exactly how much need will be required in order to accept an applicant - does Amherst participate? Jack Kent Cooke scholarships the same - does Amherst participate? Did the number of low-income freshman appear by magic, despite the “need-blind” efforts of these highly trained professionals?</p>
<p>There is clear evidence, both overt (Questbridge and Jack Kent Cooke), and indirect (the pronouncements by the college president followed by action in the admissions office) that Amherst is not “need-blind”, and uses information about the economic status of applicants in making decisions. Does that mean they need to know the exact need of every applicant? No, and they don’t have to. But they do know the exact size of the FA budget, and they know, as well-trained professionals, how to manage both admissions and yield in order to conform to it.</p>
<p>This is a tired argument. Anyway, the point of being “need blind” is that having financial need won’t impact a student’s chances of admission.</p>
<p>So… putting that tangent aside, and getting back the point about mini made about no-loans being bad policy because having kids with need borrow money would free up money for … whom? – since the college meets full need already.</p>