<p>Son is an incoming freshman who did not get any merit/financial aid. Feeling a bit unsettled paying a quarter mil for one kid's college tuition (especially since we have 2 more kids to go). Please reply if you're in the same boat. As it gets closer to actually shelling out the dough, I could use a little virtual support group. Thanks.</p>
<p>It won’t help for this year, but if you have your son apply to be an RA for next year they get a free room and a meal plan and a stipend. It’s a huge responsibility and does involve a time commitment and being “on duty” so it’s not for everyone, but it can relieve some of the burdon. </p>
<p>Also, while I admit it is a long shot, if he does very well in his classes he can work with financial aid (and Google) for outside scholarships. Sometimes there are undergrad fellowships for particular majors or just for general scholarship. Hard to get, but something anyway.</p>
<p>Otherwise, while it is a lot of money (takes my breath away compared to when we went to college) if he enjoys Tulane and NOLA as much as I did, it is a lifetime of great memories. I can’t price that for you, but it is valuable.</p>
<p>There are some community service scholarships as well. I’m sure they are pretty competitive but you never know! My son was looking into ROTC at one point.</p>
<p>Thank you @dolphnlvr6 & @fallenchemist for your good advice. Hopefully, S will excel in his classes and take the initiative to save us some money by applying for outside scholarships. I’ll mention the RA application to him for next year because that will definitely help. I’m surprised I didn’t get any posts from other parents paying full tuition. Am I the only one (at least on CC)?</p>
<p>This is a quiet group this year, with a couple of exceptions. It’s funny that way, last year was very active by comparison. You certainly are not the only one, and although I forget th exact numbers and can’t look it up right now, I know most students at Tulane are not full pay, although that is more because of need based FA rather than merit scholarships. Tulane is generous with merit compared to almost any other school, but it certainly isn’t a majority.</p>
<p>I think the CC group may be over-represented with parents of kids who have high stats and therefore would have gotten some merit money at TU. Those same parents are also over on the Vanderbilt board bemoaning the fact that their kid got a great deal at TU but got zip at Vandy, and is Vandy worth all that extra money as compared to Tulane? </p>
<p>Regardless of whether the kid is Einstein or an idiot, the kid had a range of colleges at different prices to choose from. My kid had choices ranging from $16k a year up to $60k a year. Given our family’s circumstances, TU with some merit aid seemed reasonable/do-able, but by no means cheap; but a better deal than some other schools we were considering. The break we got made it easier for us to say yes to Tulane. Which is exactly why Tulane made the scholarship offer – maybe they can divert a kid/family from paying $60k to Vandy and have them pay $40k here. For other families, the idea of getting a scholarship but then still having to pay $40k a year for college was absurd and out of the question.</p>
<p>My wild guess is that a quarter to a third of kids at Tulane are full pay. A little over a third get merit aid, although amounts differ. Then there’s need aid. Basically, every kid pays a different price. Just like everyone on an airline flight pays a different price for their seat.</p>
<p>Good luck. I think every parent is nauseated at the moment of paying that first $*%)+@!!! tuition bill. Regardless of the amount. After that first one, the rest are not nearly so bad. </p>
<p>Thanks @northwesty. Love the airline analogy!</p>
<p>That is more than an analogy. The business methods that schools use to award merit scholarship money were invented in airline industry. Tulane is one of the most advanced schools in playing that game. As you’ve gone through the application process with your kid, you may have noticed that the guy who used to be called “Admissions Director” is now called Director of “Enrollment Management.” Airlines call that guy head of “yield management.” Economists call it price discrimination. It works in these situations:</p>
<p>There are three essential conditions for yield management to be applicable:
That there is a fixed amount of resources available for sale.
That the resources sold are perishable (there is a time limit to selling the resources, after which they cease to be of value).
That different customers are willing to pay a different price for using the same amount of resources.</p>
<p>A seat in freshman english class is just like a seat on a plane flight. Once the class starts or the flight takes off, you get zero revenue from the empty seat that you can no longer sell/fill.</p>
<p>@northwesty - I think there is no question that CC is overly represented with members that receive merit. I was, of course, talking about TU as a whole. I’ll have to wander over to the Vandy board, I haven’t been there in a while.</p>
<p>And as I know you know because you have been around CC for a while, I have zero doubt that the reasons you give are exactly why Tulane does what it does. You and I both have seen many the story on here of kids that declined their invite to Vandy, Duke, WUSTL and others, even Stanford and the Ivies at times, because of the large merit award they got from Tulane. Obviously the DHS and now the PTA are most persuasive, and the Stamps is the ultimate incentive for the 5 students that receive such an offer. But as you point out, saving $20-30K if you would be full pay at a similarly priced private still has to give a family pause, since that is annually. Frame it as $80K-$120K over 4 years and it really pops out at you. I mean goodness, that can still be half or more of a starter home in some parts of the country.</p>
<p>I would also point out that those immediate merit scholarships work even harder in the sense that they also, along with an acceptance as early as October or early November, have proven to be very effective in another way. Those two things get students that were otherwise only applying to Tulane because it was free and easy to do (and hopefully because they did have some notion that the school has a good reputation) now get much more incentivised to really research the school and, most importantly, to visit. Being able to picture themselves at Tulane and in New Orleans is a game-changer.</p>
<p>Finally, I think your guesses at the end of that post are probably quite close.</p>
<p>In hindsight, I have only myself to blame. At the outset, S did not want to apply to TU. So I said, “it’s free, what have you got to lose?” Needless to say, S applied, was accepted, visited, and fell in love with TU. Now, I realize that it’s not free after all. It’s certainly been a game-changer for me! Something I’ll keep in mind when S2 (HS Junior) is going through this process. Maybe I’ll even look at sticker price before I advise him to fill out a free ap. Just because he has nothing to lose, doesn’t mean I’m not going to lose a lot of $. </p>
<p>Irene – there’s no perfect way to manage this. I myself (stupidly) took my kid on a tour of lovely expensive college A on a perfect fall football Saturday. The kid fell for college A hook line and sinker. Years later we still talk about how awesome the brownies in the cafeteria were on that perfect day. All we heard about for the next couple of years was about college A, which was a stretch for my kid to get into. Then college A sticks it to me by (i) admitting my kid and (ii) giving us not one penny of scholarship. I was toast – full sticker price of $60k. Then kid visits Tulane on a whim over spring break of senior HS year. I get bailed out of college A at the 11th hour. Dumb luck.</p>
<p>I agree that there it is really hard. D1 got into tulane with an amazing scholarship but when d2 came along 2 years later and had decided Tulane was her dream school she a very small scholarship(with very close to the same grades!). Meanwhile she received major merit awards at schools ranked in the top for her major and even got into the number one school in the country which is a public school in our state. But… we felt like D1 got to go to her #1 so we needed to let D2 as well - especially when she had worked so hard in HS and had been so focused on Tulane since we visited the school prior to D#1 applying. Really hard because D2 will have debt but we let her choose. Hope it works out. Time will tell.</p>
<p>ireneb, don’t feel too bad. You seem to be one of the 370 freshman families that have to pay the full price at Tulane.</p>
<p>According to Tulane’s Common Data Set 2013-2014, about 38% of the freshmen (605/1609) received financial aid, about 37% (596/1609) received non-need scholarship/grant, and 2% athletic scholarship, so the full-pay students count for about 23%.</p>
<p><a href=“http://tulane.edu/oair/upload/CDS-2013-2014-2.pdf”>http://tulane.edu/oair/upload/CDS-2013-2014-2.pdf</a> (Section H)</p>
<p>Tulane is known for its generous scholarship policy. At other private universities there are usually more full-pay students than those at Tulane.</p>
<p>For example, Vandy: 53% with FA, 10% with non-need scholarship, 4% with athletic scholarship, 33% full-pay.
Rice: 42% with FA, 8% with non-need scholarship, 5% athletic scholarship, 45% full-pay.
Wake Forest: 41% with FA, 7% with non-need scholarship, 6% with athletic scholarship, 46% full-pay.
Notre Dame: 47% with FA, 4% with non-need scholarship, 4% with athletic scholarship, 45% full-pay.
Johns Hopkins: 50% with FA, 0.8% with non-need scholarship, 0.6% with athletic scholarship, 48.6% full-pay.</p>
<p>A special case is Case Western (also known for scholarship): 61% with FA, 25% with non-need scholarship, no athletic scholarship, 14% full-pay.</p>
<p>Isn’t it 30% full payors? 1609 students, minus 600 who had need and got something, minus 596 who had no need but got something, minus 37 athletic scholarships. So 486 full payors out of 1609?</p>
<p>But the pattern is correct. The fanciest schools do zero merit aid and all need based aid. If you are reasonably poor and very smart, Duke is cheaper than community college. If you are middle income-ish, Duke is very expensive. So Vandy (a bit lower down the ladder) tries to steal full pay Duke admits by offering some merit deals. And Tulane tries to steal Vandy admits by offering some merit deals. And so on and so on. </p>
<p>Well, as of now Tulane is my rising senior’s first choice. We’re visiting in Sept. Finger crossed for some merit. 
Sorry you are paying full-freight. :/</p>
<p>@gettingaclue - Keep us informed as to how the visit goes!</p>
<p>Will do @fallenchemist! What’s not to love about Tulane aside from the price. I am still in a state of shock about the cost of college. I remember the day when you could pay for college by working during the summer. What happened while I wasn’t paying attention? D got OK grades (3.71 UW) (some B’s in AP math and science) great SAT 2300, and has interesting, but nonacademic EC’s. I was sort of explaining all this to her and telling her her college options. She said that she’s ok with her choices if it means not getting into the prestigious schools. She was a kid who had a lot of fun being a kid - acting and directing in plays, dancing ballet and summers at a hippie camp. She said she likes the person she has become. Of course, I feel guilty for not knowing what was up and for not pointing her, ever so slightly, in a more academic direction in her time outside of school. </p>
<p>@gettingaclue - Personally I love what you just said about her. Besides, only in the CC world and the HYP conversations is 3.71 UW not a GREAT gpa and of course 2300 is a fantastic score in any conversation. We all consider Tulane plenty prestigious anyway, and she would appear to have a good resume for it ;).</p>
<p>I know what you mean about the costs. Realizing it is a “walked 10 miles through the snow uphill both ways” thing to say, but the tuition I paid at Tulane wouldn’t even cover the fees now! However, I feel pretty good about her chances for a good merit offer from Tulane, if they continue to award them as in the past. Getting B’s in AP is still like an A- in a regular class to most admissions offices.</p>
<p>“I remember the day when you could pay for college by working during the summer.” </p>
<p>Kids can still pay for college with a summer job. If you have a summer job robbing banks…</p>