<p>Loans,as well as any other financial machination to pay for college is really a family matter. I, for one, would be so miserbly tempted if it came down to coming up with extra to pay for Harvard or really any school my child really really wanted, that I’d probably succumb, and then have to convince my DH who is more grounded financially. You don’t know what anyone’s true break point is until it happens.</p>
<p>I have two acquaintances, (more than just casual acquintances as I’ve known them for so many years) who are both paying through the nose, full $60K amounts for their kids to go to a local private university, that I frankly and uterly feel is a waste of that kind of money. Yes, I sure would balk and probably refuse to pay that much for that school, in fact I 'd have a hard time graciously anteing up the amount that we told each kid we’d pay, if there were any choices in the mix, though we’d do it. In our case, we put so much on the table, and if the kid could come up with the rest, then it’s totally the kid’s choice. Otherwise we have to talk about it and make a decision whether coming up with more, which we cannot do without borrowing more than we can repay out of income. It really has to be worth while to do this. We already have student loans and are squeezed in terms of our obligations vs income. </p>
<p>So that’s where personal judgement and family discussion comes into play. I’ve seen kids realize that for their parents to risk their pensions or realestate investment for their own futures is not worth it. There are other ways to get that degree and get to where they want to go. Others declare it’s the be all to end all. And Parents take those camps and a number in between as well. No right one size fitsl all answer nere.</p>
<p>I do think there are some schools that offer a “discount” (through merit scholarships) to otherwise full-pay students to induce them to attend. I have a friend whose child has stats that are at best average (B average with all non-honors, non-AP courses and a 21 ACT). This student was offered merit ($10-$15K a year) at a few small private schools with tuitions in the $40K range. These were not top schools by any stretch of the imagination, but this student wasn’t in the top half of admitted students, either. OTOH, this same family has a student with an A average in all honors and AP courses and a 33 ACT who is attending a top 30 school and received no merit aid. The top 30 school has no problems filling their class with full pay students with good stats, so I guess they don’t have to discount tuition for those students.</p>
<p>think there are some schools that offer a “discount” (through merit scholarships) to otherwise full-pay students to induce them to attend. I have a friend whose child has stats that are at best average (B average with all non-honors, non-AP courses and a 21 ACT). This student was offered merit ($10-$15K a year) at a few small private schools with tuitions in the $40K range</p>
<p>Yes, there are some low-ranked, unranked privates that have raised their prices over the years just so they can offer “discounts” that flatter the students they accept. These schools struggle to have adequate enrollment each year and have very high acceptance rates.</p>
<p>About a year ago, there was a mom who was hunting for scholarships for her ACT 20 son. At first glance, that seemed impossible, but there were some lowly ranked, unranked privates with $40k-50k price tags that offered $10k per year. Was that truly merit? Heck no. It was pure flattery.</p>
<p>My best friend’s D was accepted to a high school summer music program which is quite expensive to attend. She was awarded a $1k scholarship and the parents were so excited, and quickly sent in their money. When they went to drop off their D for the multi-week program, they learned from another parent that the cost had increased by $1k that summer, and everyone was given that “scholarship”. It was all just a marketing ploy…and it worked.</p>
<p>Yea that was what I was wondering. I was looking at the total costs of the various liberal arts colleges on my list and some are over $50,000 per year! It just strikes me as odd that average colleges could charge almost as much as Harvard without significantly discounting the actual price to a more reasonable baseline. I assumed that colleges would act almost as car dealers, setting the price unreasonably high and then after “negotiations” with the customer, bringing it down to the more reasonable base line. </p>
<p>Are there characteristics of colleges which do this? I’m sure Carleton wouldn’t offer me a discount, but would a school like College of Wooster give me a $10-$15k a year discount as a “marketing ploy” to get my parents to forfeit whatever the school actually costs? I have a hard time believing that CoW or similar schools can truly cost as much as Carleton to operate even though the base price is relatively similar.</p>
<p>You would be hard pressed to find that information other than anecdotally … and even then, the fact that Susie got it doesn’t mean Jake will get it. Merit is often used as a recruiting tool, and how it is used depends on the needs of the school at that particular time. It is a crap shoot.</p>
<p>And no, I do not believe colleges reserve merit for “rich” kids. The middle class … the ones who are offered only loans … are probably more likely to benefit from merit. That is just my opinion, of course.</p>
<p>Rocas, yes, ti is possible. But let me tell you, my one son applied to a lot of schools and got a lot of merit money offers. But the most was for $5K and that was off a top priced school which still put it out of our range. It’s scary these days that even a $30K award which another son got, still meant over $30K to pay. So what the amounts are, I don’t know. I’m going to look up what that local school actually charges and what it gives out on average for merit money. The two familes I know who are sending their kids there, are getting like $1000 in some award, hardly a drop in the bucket, given the cost. I know another family who did get $15K from them in financial aid as they had two in college, and it was the best fin aid package they were offered, but the school was also the most expensive in sticke price. The $15K brought the cost to be about $5K less than some other schools that they felt were far preferable. And the other schools refused to budge when this was brought up in negotiation. But these are just anecdotes, and your milieage may vary. Things change over time too. My son who got all those little awards applied to college about 8 years ago. Costs have risen since then, and maybe the award amounts have as well.</p>
<p>Just looked up common data set for the college I was talking about. COA from two years ago $55K. Less than 10% of those there get full need met. 28% get merit money, with the average amount being about 20K. Not bad. If one of mine got the average scholarship, it would have been an affordable school. But IMO the state options and some other privates in the area are much better schools even at that price. But, yes, if one of mine could make it a go, then, I would have done it. The two I know who will be going there did not get much merit money at all About a thousand, I was told. </p>
<p>But then this is a school where most of the merit awards (2/3 of them) do go to the students with financial need. I usually see this ratio reversed. It looks like in this particular case, merit goes to those without looking at whether need is an issue.</p>
<p>Yep. I see this a lot. Or a lot more students without need getting merit. The stats can tell a story. The school I just examined, and yet another school I took a look at, definitely give financial aid students at least an equal shot at the merit money as they are getting it at least as much as the non aid students.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, I fully agree that schools should reserve the bulk of their aid to middle class and below students. It’s pathetic that a college like Drew would offer me merit at the expense of meeting another person’s need. No arguments there. Of course, maybe universities should just lower the base price, but that’s another rant for another thread.</p>
<p>CptoftheHouse, although I’d be thrilled to go to my state’s better schools, realistically I won’t qualify for them, hence why I’m looking at less selective colleges (although I am applying to a few “yeah right” schools). At the aforementioned school that gives around 28% of its students merit aid, do you know what the percent breakdown was for students who didn’t have need versus those that did? If it’s like BobWallace’s example of Drew University, does that mean that the actual cost of the school is around $35,000 a year?</p>
<p>Our son would get pretty good need-based financial aid at U of So Cal. If our son also received one of their quite generous merit scholarships, the resultant package would put our cost way below our EFC. So I presume that the merit aid would substitute for a significant portion of the need-based aid. So the net benefit of the merit aid would be less to our son than to someone who would receive less need-based aid.</p>
<p>For various reasons, I don’t feel comfortable naming the local school about which I made my remarks. But for that school 76% of those who got financial aid got merit money vs the24% with no need getting merit money. ALso about 72% of the freshman did get financial aid. Looking further, it appeared that looking at the school as a whole , upperclassmen tended to get their awards renewed because those figures were about the same as the freshmen ones. </p>
<p>So look at various schools and what the numbers are for them. They do tell somewhat of a story. </p>
<p>At the school, I was perusing, the average cost of the scool was about $35K a year, but… there might be a lot of full rides for those the school wanted the most, balance by those who got a token $1K like the folks I know. Take $40K in awards between two students and one gets $39K, the other $1k and the average is an impressive looking $20K, but really it could be NO ONE gets that average number. </p>
<p>And still, in my state, the cost of a SUNY is $20K. And with certain test scores that are not too way up there, an auto $2500K award at UBuffalo which makes it a bargain difficult to beat in price. We were hard put to beat the in state prices for a sleep away experience. My one did get a full tuition award at a local school, another got a full ride at a school, maybe it was an athletic scholarship, was never quite sure about it, but neither were schools that either wanted, and little time was spent to those venues since they got affordable choices they preferred, though now, my one sees a lot of his friends at that local school communting and happy and looks at things quite differently with a a two year more mature perspective.</p>
<p>Socaldad, that is how we get to the question posed by the OP. </p>
<p>Let’s say you are an Admissions officer and you are given a pot of money to give out for merit awards, and you are also given a wish list of what the college wants in their new class of students along with the usual goals of high achievers academically, and the specialty admits (athletic, development, etc). Your job is to get as many of the top picks you can to come. Now you don’t know what the need is for those kids in a need blind admissions situation which is the case with most schools. You just know if the kid applied for financial aid because that is checked on the app, and because you do have to forward the names of all those accepted and applying for fin aid to that department. So though you know if a kid applied for aid, you don’t know if he’ll get it, and you don’t know if the need is $5K or $50K. You’ve already accepted the kid. It’s just a matter of how you spend your merit dollars to entice your best picks to come. </p>
<p>You also know that every dollar you give a kid who does qualify for finanicaila iad, is going to reduce is need by a dollar, so he’s could get just about the same amount of money net from the school… It’s just coming out of your own little pot rather than that of financial aid, and you want the money to go the furthest. So what does one do in such a scenario? At a school where need is not likely to be met, you give the merit anyways, and hope or indicates to fin aid that this is top consideration applicant. AT those schools where full need is met and by formula, you just don’t give the aid to those who are going just get it swallowed by fin aid. That is the reasonable way, IMO.</p>
<p>" Our son would get pretty good need-based financial aid at U of So Cal. If our son also received one of their quite generous merit scholarships, the resultant package would put our cost way below our EFC. So I presume that the merit aid would substitute for a significant portion of the need-based aid. So the net benefit of the merit aid would be less to our son than to someone who would receive less need-based aid."</p>
<p>True, but if some of your sons aid is loans, then the loans may disappear…or he could take loans and reduce your contribution by 5500.</p>
<p>Yes, when I looked at this, I determined that we would benefit from the first $8,000 of merit aid. But many of the USC merit aid awards are much in excess of $8,000, so for us there would be no advantage to getting one of the bigger awards.</p>
<p>So here’s a question. Lets say you are 99.9% sure you are not eligible for FA. Your kid is a high stat kid that falls well within the top quartile of accepted students.</p>
<p>Are you better off not applying for FA to increase your chances of getting merit $? Or are you better off applying for FA in the really off chance you’ll receive some?</p>
<p>At most schools it doesn’t matter whether you apply for FA or not, because merit and FA are decided independently. (Typically FA dept decides FA and admissions decides merit.)</p>
<p>I know of a situation where merit was not given but then FA greatly exceeded EFC - resulting in the same result that the merit would have provided. This scenario seems to support the assumption that merit is given to wealthier students.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t understand why merit would influence wealthier students–especially if the parents were status-conscious at all and could “pay” for a more prestigious institution (since it seems full-pay adds a level of desirability at some schools). A family that can write a check for $60k without blinking isn’t likely to be motivated much by a discount for whatever the reason.</p>
<p>Maybe the question is what defines “rich” as the OP means it?</p>