Is this thread a good reflection of the CC community in general?
Should this be merged with the bragging thread?
Also, full-pay students include students from abroad. One way that some of the excellent, but struggling LACs stay afloat is through recruiting full-pay students from other countries.
Um… the OP asked a question. People are assuming they want to know if (and maybe how) families swing paying full fare.
@Portercat, I think the people responding are mostly people who do pay full freight, but I don’t know that it is representative of CC. Most posters out here are applying for FA, or struggling to pay their EFC.
@Dustyfeathers, it isn’t just LACs – plenty of public universities are getting a boost from full pay internationals, too.
@intparent point well taken, but I was focusing on the OP’s question, not the entire range of higher ed.
Recently had lunch with a former boss. Pretty high level executive. He put three kids through Georgetown and I wanted some advice on his overall experience. I started to ask him about the financial aid process. He stopped me and said he had no experience with that. Must be nice.
@Madison85 I took the OP’s question as a legitimate question. A year ago my younger D was at a charter school that had only recently opened and was just starting its high school guidance counseling program. They held a meeting for parents to market the high school program, and touted the success of their other locations at getting kids in top schools and helping get scholarships and FA. One of the school administrators said: “Nobody pays full price!” as though you’d be a total sucker if you did. I bit my tongue. I would agree that everyone probably has options so that you don’t have to pay full price if you’re flexible about where you go. We could have sent D1 to another college with merit aid. But the fact is that the most highly selective schools don’t give any merit aid, and there is no “secret discount” if your income and/or assets exceed a certain amount, even if you just barely exceed that amount.
There are plenty of folks who are full pay at $60,000 a year private schools. There are also plenty of folks who are OOS students at colleges that cost almost that much…and they are also full pay.
I’m curious why the OP wants to know this.
Right there with @oneofthosemoms
Full pay upper middle classer. Paid the same as my son’s multi- millionaire roommate.
Full pay to Carleton here. Can’t say no to a school that fits D’s personality so perfectly. Thank goodness I only have one kid.
Answering the OP’s literal question, the answer is probably no. It would be an extremely rare student who somehow managed to make the money to pay full sticker price.
Parents, on the other hand, certainly do pay full price.
Talked to one mother whose daughter is an athlete at her ivy league school and they are full pay. Mother stated her daughter is happy and that is what motivates her to go to work to every day.
As a DIV level athlete and NMF, she could have a full ride at numerous universities. I am not sure what I would do in the same situation.
Full freight at Cornell x 2. S1 turned down athletic scholarships to play at Cornell. Great education. (It should be noted that athletic schollies in his sport are mostly not full rides. One of them would have been enough money for 1-2 trips to campus to watch our son play.)
I would estimate that 50% of the kids at my daughter’s high school class are full pay at institutions that cost $60k per year and up, whether private schools or OOS institutions that cost that much. D chose from 8 schools and picked one that gave her some scholarship money but at 5 of them we got letters congratulating us for being able to fully cover the cost of her college education. Which we can - if we don’t cover the little things like the mortgage, food and taking care of our other child.
We are also FP. There were a couple of schools that DS considered where he was offered generous merit aid and a couple where he was not. Some of the latter we felt were probably not “worth” the full sticker price given his other options. The one he chose, however, was so much a better fit for him (and one that does not offer merit aid), that we were happy to support him. Like @kchendds , we’re grateful that our brood is small enough that this is possible.
Cornell FA stats:
Full-time first-year students 3,225
Number who applied for aid 1,791
Number determined to have financial need 1,504
Number awarded financial aid 1,504
It’s not just CC, at Cornell over 50% of students are full pay.
What a weird question.
Of course there are students (parents) who pay full sticker price. Thousands and thousands of them.
For starters, half of the student body at every Ivy, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore and many other very top private colleges pay the full sticker price.
Granted, there are not a huge number of colleges that have enough prestige to be able to command full sticker (no merit or non-need based aid) while also rejecting 85%+ of applicants, but they are out there.
Even at lesser schools, there’s plenty of people who pay full sticker.
Although it does seem that with private colleges, once you get down the food chain a bit, nobody pays full sticker. There’s schools where 99% receive either need money, “merit” money or both.
I recently read an article on those types of schools - lower tier, small endowment places. Was very interesting. They are in a perpetual financial struggle - they desperately need every tuition dollar, but they have to give out “merit” money to attract students (no one in their right mind would pay full sticker, for example, $40,000) to go to those places.
They feel they can’t lower their “listed” tuition price because people will think even less of their school. So they keep their “list” price at $40,000, even though it’s a total fiction because no one really pays it.
Maybe those are the types of schools you are thinking about.
“If a college lists something like 87% received financial aid(I’m assuming there are grants and federal grants?), does that include merit and scholarships?”
Yes.
Also, that 87% receiving aid would include the Direct Loan only …which anyone can take simply by completing a FAFSA.
Why would answeing this question be bragging? Colleges come and tell kids, no worries on the cost! We have FA! This OP is wondering if that is true is all…it’s not like we are posting our AGI here.