“Some of the NYU’s Pell grant students may have come from the recently merged-in PINYU, which had significantly better financial aid than NYU did before the merger.”
^^^ No, the Scorecard (erroneously) lists the two schools separately.
“NYU also offers merit scholarships and probably does preferential packaging, so some of the Pell grant students may be those whom it offers much better than typical financial aid.”
^^^ Yes, NYU does do this. Those Pell students not offered good packages should not take the deal.
I am admiring NYU for its honesty and refusal to mislead when it comes to financial aid. This is worthy of praise, @lookingforward, in a day and age where most colleges are hawking their (truthfully insufficient) aid to get applicants in the door. No one expects colleges to solve every problem, but they can certainly control the “messages” that they themselves are sending out.
@prospect1 I’ve seen you mention “most colleges are hawking their (truthfully insufficient) aid to get applicants in the door” on a couple of threads. I’d like to know which schools you feel are in this category.
[
You make a fair point about endowment per student. With only about $64K in endowment per student, NYU is not a particularly wealthy institution for its size. At a standard 5% payout from endowment, that would give NYU only $3,200 per student per year, clearly not enough to support a generous need-based FA program.
Some schools with much larger endowment-per-student also fare quite poorly on the NY Times index. An example would be WUSTL, with a $6.6 billion endowment or $470K per student (=$23,500 per student per year on a 5% payout). This makes WUSTL’s endowment the 26th largest on a per-student basis–larger than schools like Penn, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, and Vanderbilt. Yet WUSTL comes in at a dismal #136 on the NY Times index, mainly because Pell recipients comprise only 7% of its graduating students Clearly, serving low-income students is not a high priority for WUSTL.
^ Could be WUSTL be hurt by not being an Ivy League school? There are some posters on CC who haven’t used the right name. I’m not trying to exonerate them by any means, but wondering. Everyone knows of the Ivy League (even if some students add MIT and Stanford…)
@Erin’s Dad, well, to provide a list would start WW3 among all of the cheerleaders for these colleges on this forum. I can reveal that I used to have a stack of college brochures that stood almost as tall as me; I used to circulate a picture of it in my circles for a good laugh. With all my kids out the door, the stack is gone.
These brochures were from colleges we had visited in person, or visited through fairs, or came to my kids’ schools and were handed out when requested, etc. I have sat through, if memory serves, about two to three dozen financial aid presentations.
Pre-application, the typical message is, “Do not be afraid to apply to our amazing college. We work with all sorts of families to make our college affordable to most students. We are among the most generous in the nation. We meet (full) (most) (a lot) of our student’s need.” Blah blah blah.
Post-application/admitted students’ day, the financial aid presentation is typically very stark and honest. They will tell you about all of the loans and payment plans you can take advantage of. Some colleges will tell you at this point how to appeal your package, some will tell you that the decisions are pretty final, this varies.
Different schools have different resources and different models. That’s actually a good thing.
WUSTL, for example, does merit money for kids with outstanding academics. The Ivies don’t do that. So there may be a great deal at WUSTL for a kid whose family makes $200k. That family would have to pay full sticker at an Ivy which might be tough. I don’t see that as evil.
All you can ask is for transparency so families can figure out what schools will likely provide an academic and financial fit for their kid.
The DOE’s scorecard with average net price sorted by income level is a welcome addition to the needed transparency. I only wish they provided even more granularity.
For example, families with $100k income (75th percentile) are lumped into one category with the 1 percenters ($350k).