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<p>You can create (if you have enough wealth) or contribute to a scholarship fund at your alma mater. In that way the money, or the earnings on the money, goes to needy youngsters </p>
<p>The amount is different for each school - Cornell’s amount is a lot lower than Yale’s. We were told that we would have multiple years to fulfill our pledge. Schools would take securities in lieu of cash, so we could avoid paying taxes. I decided we weren’t in that league, so told D2 that she had to get in on her own.</p>
<p>I have a lot of problems with the article, but then so I do with most articles that are pushing a viewpoint. On the whole, he has some good points there.</p>
<p>As to his solutions? First of all, Harvard as does look at incomes, as do all schools that are “need blind” in admissions to skew the odds in the favor of low income kids. Those adversely affected by low income families do get a boost. Most admissions officers like the underdogs,not the silver spooned applicants anyways. What gets in the way of this is the fact that anyone who has done any work in educational research knows: income and academic aptitude are directly, very strongly related. it’s a fact. So, when an institution wants to the best in terms of academics, and get the best of the best in aptitude, to ignore that completely is not likely to have it continue its reign as #1, There has to be some balance here, and the balance means that you have to give some boost to get this diversity but not so much to adversely affect excellence. The same with diversity and representation. It comes down to quotas if you want to reflect the population of the nation in terms of ethnicity, race, etc. If you want the demographics of the country reflected at Harvard, it’s back to the Jewish quotas and throw the Asians in there as well, to get that. Clearly when you give an underrepresented group extra consideration to get more that group into an organization, you are taking from spots that other groups through sheer merit would have gotten those limited spots because they are not URMs and they cannot get those extra "points’. </p>
<p>The idea of jacking up the tuition higher ignores the plight of many young people who have parents who by formula can afford to pay or won’t or can’t. That the “sins of the fathers” are so inflicted on kids is no where so apparent than how college financial aid works. Those who have parents who are willing to break the bank to pay or better yet have the money and can pay comfortably, can go to college as can those whose parents are so poor they don’t have to pay. If Dad makes a half million a year but doesn’t want to give up his Porsche and his grand life style with his trophy wife, and child support ends at age 18, kid is out of luck. I see it all of the time. And it doesn’t have to be a divorce situation Some parents get them selves in trouble financially, don’t want to give up standard of living they’ve become accustomed to, they won’t pay more than $X a year, too bad for the kid if fin aid formulas want a lot more than that. Harvard and other supposedly,"no one needs not to apply due to need’ schools kinda ignore that group.</p>
<p>I can go on. But don’t know what the solutions are when exclusivity is so desired by many of us. To make in uno exclusive would then have it lose that lustre. The focus is more to get more schools to come up to Harvard and other schools’ standards in term of education. Anyone thinks for an instant that John Jay comes close to H in terms of academic excellence is fooling himself but not many others. </p>
<p>Bloomberg, the former mayor of NYC, put his money into his alma mater, Johns Hopkins when it came down to where he was going to donate. Not the CUNY system which will be part of his legacy in his most public, historic job in his lifetime. They could have possibly benefitted from that money, I would think. But then those who decide to go to John Jay, pretty much get all need met in terms of tuition and fees with PELL, TAP and Direct loans available along with the very low CUNY rates. Not so with Johns Hopkins. Two Johns, two very differnt cost schedules. </p>
<p>Bloomberg is not done. He still has many billions to give away. Wouldn’t be shocked if he eventually gives to other colleges in NYC. CUNY system may be part of his legacy, but he was instrumental in starting a new engineering grad school, partnering Cornell and Technion together in NYC. Seems like a good place to start. </p>
<p>I don’t think he’ll give much to the CUNYs. A mere $3 million to Harvard. Over a billion to his ug alma mater alone, not counting the hospital and public health schools of JHU, and he’s not done yet there. He loves that place and it’s home to him more so the NYC, IMO.</p>
<p>I was in the car and heard something on the radio about national HS math and reading test scores. Not only were they shockingly awful (very low percentages with grade-level reading/math proficiency), the racial disparities were huge. Blacks are doing much worse than whites, Asians are doing much better than everyone else. What else is new?</p>
<p>I think it is safe to presume that all races have similar distributions of innate intelligence at birth (or at least at conception, as maternal nutrition and drug and alcohol intake affect prenatal development). By the time the kids enter kindergarden, there are already huge differences. The stage is set for racial disparities long before Harvard is on anyone’s radar.</p>
<p>If you’re opposed to college costing $60k per year, which is more than reasonable, why attack the one school that’s doing the most to make the net price affordable for everyone? There’s maybe two other colleges in the country that would give this guy’s kids need-based aid at ALL. He lost me when he talked about how much more money Harvard ought to give people who make $200k.</p>
<p>^^Correct. Good on Harvard and the others…or more precisely…good on all the donors who make these results possible.</p>
<p>The best part of the story? A link plastered above! </p>
<p><a href=“Amherst College Bans Students From Joining Fraternities | HuffPost College”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>Fulll of misconceptions. Aid is given to those who make up to $150K ( a few years ago it weas $180K). Diversity is going up dramatically over the years but many of the factors involved are not in Harvard’s control. We found the level of support at Harvard from deans and staff and HUHS to be more than satisfactory. Economic status is different from class: the author doesn’t seem to understand this. Etc.</p>
<p>^^^ Yeah, hard to keep up with all the misconceptions and stereotypes in the article. Does distract from trying to understand if he has some valid points. Things like you mentioned, and that SATs are actually the best predictor of success, that all rich applicants have someone else do their applications or even funny outdated things like being notified of a decision from the thick admissions package in the mail. LOL.</p>
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<p>I don’t think your son gets to pick whether or not he “takes advantage of it.” It’s not like applying for a scholarship. I’ve never seen an app where legacy status is something for which you check a box or otherwise formally apply for. The common app and every other app I’ve seen just asks you if and where your parents went to college, and they take it from there. If one or both of them went to the school in question and otherwise qualify, bingo! - you’re a legacy. The school will regard you as a legacy whether you wanted it or not.</p>
<p>I suppose your son could write to the school and formally request that he not be classified as a legacy, but who knows what they would do with such a highly-unusual request?</p>
<p>He lost me at the point he lamented Harvard’s audacity in threatening his family’s “lower upper-middle class status.” There are many other fine colleges; I don’t know of any which would offer a better deal to lower upper-middle class families, barring full-ride merit scholarships.</p>
<p>The guidance dept at the HS has a timeline of meetings to plan college applications, and one of them is designated a “stragegy” meeting, at which they discuss ED, EA, etc. I imagine that at this meeting the subject of legacy status comes up. If my son were in the range where he might have a good chance for Harvard because he’s a legacy but not a great chance without legacy status, and the GC told him this, then he would not apply. I do realize that there is not a separate application!</p>
<p>This is not going to come up, though. </p>
<p>Even legacies don’t usually have a good chance and if they do, it’s because they really do offer something special.</p>
<p>I always wonder who these people are who only met snotty rich people at Harvard (or Yale). Nearly everyone I knew was solidly middle class, a number were working class. Most went to public schools. I knew lots of kids who’d been on dorm crew or had other school sponsored jobs - eventually I did too - though I was not on financial aid. I only met one person in four years who was in a finals club. And I believe Harvard is more diverse now than it was then.</p>