<p>Many colleges emphasize ability to pay full price when it comes to picking names from their wait list.</p>
<p>The less financially sophisticated students are also more likely to miss the early priority deadline for submitting all of their financial aid information. That allows a college to say they met 100% need for students who met all of their deadlines.</p>
<p>Parents get the knickers in a twist over admissions – but the real evil is in the ease in which a college kid can get up to his/her eyebrows in loans. An admissions officer who plainly says “This is what it costs to come here” is being honest and may be directing the student and family into a more affordable path. </p>
<p>No one wants to be the bearer of ugly news – that someone’s fabulous child may not have what it takes, deep pocket wise, to navigate four years at Wonderful University. </p>
<p>Truthfully, my heart goes out the financial aid folks who have to deal with hopes and dreams on one hand and cold, hard bean counting on the other. It may be that they are on the frontier of our new reality. We are a nation that is re-sizing everything, from pensions, to health care to college opportunities. It’s all looking like a hard slog from here.</p>
<p>Okay, this is driving me crazy! </p>
<p>"Let them eat cake.</p>
<p>Noblesse oblige.</p>
<p>There but for the grace… "</p>
<p>I don’t get what they have to do with each other…</p>
<p>I use the last one frequently. </p>
<p>The first one I associate with beheading.</p>
<p>The second one I looked up, to see if it had more than one meaning…</p>
<p>"“Noblesse oblige” is generally used to imply that with wealth, power and prestige come responsibilities. The phrase is sometimes used derisively, in the sense of condescending or hypocritical social responsibility.[1] In American English especially, the term has also been applied more broadly to those who are capable of simple acts to help another, usually one who is less fortunate.</p>
<p>In ethical discussion, it is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. Finally, it has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency."</p>
<p>Help me out here! What am I missing.</p>
<p>Maybe once you realize that “there but for the grace of God” go people with more money…people with more money than stats should pay more so that those with more stats than money don’t have to… and if you complain, someone may want to cut you head off? That’s not it…</p>
<p>Let them eat cake</p>
<p>This is Marie Antoinette out of touch with the reality of the common person. Being unaware of and unappreciative of the difficulties others face can lead to not such positive outcomes. Karma’s a b----, as some might say.</p>
<p>Noblesse oblige</p>
<p>To me, when especially blessed, perhaps there is some responsibility to give back in some way. </p>
<p>There but for the grace of G-d go I</p>
<p>As my husband just put it, the recognition that, that could be you at the side of the road.</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting story about the story behind the story…
[Let</a> them eat cake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake]Let”>Let them eat cake - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>But I don’t get what what ties them together. Are you saying CC posters are selfish and out of touch with the common people, or that they feel blessed and accept responsibility to giveback in some way?</p>
<p>In the context of a thread about resentment towards those who get a boost for paying full price (or as I see, don’t get dinged for NOT being able to pay full price), how does it apply?</p>
<p>Ponder as you see fit.</p>
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<p>The thing that ties them together is that one person listed them in a post without any apparent reason. Our collective confusion comes from the fact that they have little to do with one another. Does the poster realize that? Nobody knows.</p>
<p>One’s opinions seem to depend completely upon where they are coming from. I don’t quite understand why it is more acceptable to say, “Hey, student X! We want you so much because you are: from state A, or race B, or play instrument C. or have extra-curricular activity D. Enough that we’ll let you come here for practically free (should you need it). But we will give you zero advantage if you will actually pay 50K+ for the same education others will get for almost nothing. Though money is required to support this college, and to provide great deals for those who can’t afford it.” What other product in the world do people pay such a range of 0-200K plus, for the same exact thing?</p>
<p>Such an amazing entitlement society we have here, kids expecting they are entitled to any education for low/no cost, they deserve it. Bummer for those kids whose parents are deemed full pay, but are unwilling/unable to pay for it. Leaving them with the massive debt for the same degree as anyone else.</p>
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<p>Of course not. You can’t fault the individual schools. They’re doing what they need to do to survive.</p>
<p>But it does say something about the choices we’re making as a society—choices few other advanced economies have made, or would make. For much of the latter half of the 20th Century higher education in America was a great engine of upward social mobility for the most talented offspring of the less affluent classes. This was driven mainly by the expansion of affordable public (taxpayer-supported) higher education, but secondarily by an egalitarian/meritocratic impulse even among traditionally elite schools, manifested in need-blind admissions policies and a commitment to meeting full financial need for every “deserving” student. Now we’re seeing substantial erosion of those opportunities, and of the ideals that stood behind them. Public higher education is increasingly unaffordable for many, and as legislatures cut back support, public institutions will be forced to make difficult choices between preserving quality and preserving access. Meanwhile, private institutions are rapidly retreating from their commitments to accessibility and affordability for the most talented regardless of socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>In my view this is a great tragedy. Others seem to take the view, “So what; privilege has its privileges, and it was never as meritocratic and egalitarian as you imagined anyway.” Perhaps. But I continue to believe that it’s not a good thing for our society to parcel out knowledge, educational and career opportunity, and wealth on the basis of inherited financial or social advantage.</p>
<p>I say this, by the way, not as a matter of sour grapes. My D1 is a freshman at an elite LAC. She’s a “full-pay.” I think investing in her education is the best thing DW I could do with our money, even though it bleeds us until it hurts sometimes. But I also know my D1 is where she is in large part because I came up from modest beginnings during an era when the most talented did have access the the very best our higher education institutions could offer. I just don’t want to be the one closing those doors to those who would follow behind me.</p>
<p>The part I’m still trying to wrap my head around is, how many kids or schools are we talking about here? Sure, it’s fascinating to learn about the ins and outs of “elite” college admissions, but it seems like much of what we are talking about applies to so few kids, I can’t quite figure out why it all seems so dire.</p>
<p>I have learned a lot here, including that it’s often expected I pay the price of a house over four years, without thinking about it as a financial investment. Wow! I never dreamed or HEARD of such a thing growing up,</p>
<p>Shrink - It’s a bubble. Remember what you learned growing up as you try to make sense of what you’re reading here. </p>
<p>If you’re a full-payer, as your comment suggests, you must consider that education in investment terms. There are many schools/programs that simply aren’t worth the price - at full pay. In fact, that would be the vast majority (as I see it).</p>
<p>“If you’re a full-payer, as your comment suggests, you must consider that education in investment terms. There are many schools/programs that simply aren’t worth the price - at full pay. In fact, that would be the vast majority (as I see it).”</p>
<p>I ponder that question sometimes. Which has been debated endlessly on this forum. As a full pay (albeit rather painfully) parent, it can be hard to deem which colleges are “worth it.” I suppose it generally works itself out, with some schools offering merit aid, and others that kids barely get into make people pay the full freight. But then again, one can consider major, reputation, or purely where a kid would really have a great time and get the most out of his/her education. Hard to be objective about it. Full pay at our top rated public university is a steal, maybe not worth it at our local mediocre private school. Perhaps US News has a rating system on that one, which full pay schools are “worth it?” And that depends on your income, or if you or the child have to go into debt. Such a dilemma.</p>
<p>It’s complex. It depends on the student, the school, the major, and much more. There are lots of things that need to line up to make the choice sensible, and inherent value is a big part of it. The vast majority of schools/programs don’t pass that test at full price. It makes lots of sense to move to where merit aid provides fair value. Some majors make little sense at almost *any *price, let alone these bubble prices!</p>
<p>Another big component is whether the student has demonstrated readiness for the program. We all love our sons and daughters, but not every student has earned the chance to reach for an expensive school; some kids aren’t ready for college at all. As parents, we can provide every opportunity, but at some point opportunity must be seized. Clearly, that should happen well before the investment of a few hundred thousand dollars. Anyway, that’s the way it works around this household.</p>
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<p>I have no objection to private schools being need-aware. In fact, they can auction off all their spots to the highest bidders for all I care - just so long as they make it plain that’s what they are doing. What I object to is a school selling itself as need-blind when behind the closed doors of the admissions committee it is really need-aware.</p>
<p>Why don’t the schools be honest and call themselves need-aware?</p>
<p>(oops-- this was already posted-- sorry for duplication)</p>
<p>busdriver11, I believe that is the HUGEST downfall of the USNews ranking - there is no consideration to cost given whatsoever. USNews rewards features that cost a lot (lower class size, low student:faculty ratio), but gives no consideration to how much tuition someone has to pay for that benefit. As a result, high cost colleges will probably always outrank lower cost schools. If they included a factor that gave “bonus points” for keeping costs down, you’d see a drastic re-arranging of rankings. How they’d adjust for in-state vs out-of-state at state schools is a question, but I still think “net average tuition” (the price the average student pays after FA & Merit aid) should be a factor in the rankings - and not a minor factor, either.</p>
<p>Sorry, I guess that was slightly off-topic.</p>
<p>Brandeis explained their (new) “need-aware” policy in the following way:</p>
<p>Instead of admitting their top X students on a need-blind basis, and spreading around the available financial aid money among the admitted students who need aid, thereby NOT MEETING FULL NEED for admitted students because they simply didn’t have the resources for it, now they rank the candidates in order of how much they want them on a need-blind basis. They work their way down the list, admitting the full-pays and the aid-needed kids, meeting full need of the kids with need, until they run out of aid money. After that point, they keep going down the list admitting the full-pays until they reach the full quota they planned to admit.</p>
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LOL!! How’d she get the extra credit??</p>
<p>Affordable higher education is a laudable goal, but offering it to everyone is not an absolute obligation on the college or government’s part. Until we make attending college mandatory, like k-12, no one should be surprised that colleges tweak their tuitions and finaid policies.</p>
<p>After all, college education is a service product. Like anything else with monetary value, people with money will always have advantage in obtaining such service. Of course, the realities are much more nuanced; how a society allocate educational resources indeed says a lot about its values and aspirations, but money will always a factor is a commercial society. </p>
<p>Two families of financial equal may make very different choices in sending a child to college. One may consider an inexpensive state school the best option and are happy to save the money for something else, another may consider sending the kid to a very expensive college a top priority and is willing to sacrifice everything else for it. Neither is absolutely right or wrong, and plenty people come down on either choice. This just speak to the fact that we are a very diverse society.</p>
<p>jym626 said:</p>
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<p>Someone posted that being full pay would give you an extra 3 points on the ACT score. I assume that her daughter got a 35.</p>