<p>The advantage of full-pay is not only at the time of admissions but more importantly for the time up to that point.</p>
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<p>No, a majority are not full-pay. At Brandeis, for example (just because I recently looked this up), 70% of incoming freshmen applied for FA, and the college decided that 58% of the freshmen had financial need. And that’s at a college that denies admission to some applicants with financial need. The figures are pretty similar at many colleges. At Harvard 60% of students get need-based FA; at Princeton 58.7%; at Yale 54.3%; at UC Berkeley 50.7%, but that’s a public institution with a much lower-instate COA that doesn’t have the resources to meet 100% of need, but isn’t need-aware in admissions so lots of kids get “gapped.”</p>
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<p>No, not everywhere. Most college students attend public universities. For the most part, publics are “need-blind” in admissions; they’ll admit anyone they deem qualified. But very few of them promise to meet 100% of need, so lots of students get “gapped.” Those kids then need to decide whether to attend, based on whether they think they can piece together the finances somehow. But at least they have that choice, unlike at Brandeis which may tell them, if they’re near the bottom of the group that would otherwise be admitted, “Sorry, you can’t come here even if you could figure out a way to pay for it.” </p>
<p>But neither is it an advantage to be full-pay at the most elite private colleges. HYPSM, from everything I’ve ever heard, truly are need-blind in admissions and committed to meeting 100% of need, whatever that need is, from $0 to full COA. Some other private universities and top LACs try to emulate them. I think the “need-aware” phenomenon exists mainly at a fairly narrow band of pretty good but not exceptionally wealthy private institutions.</p>
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<p>OK, here’s the correction: they’re not reuired to “give out” one dime to anyone other than themselves. They can’t simply hoard all their endowment money and not spend a penny of it; if they did, the IRS would strip them of their tax-deductible status. So most spend in the range of 3.5% to 5% of their endowment assets annually, based on a 3-, 5-, or 7-year moving average of asset value. But they can spend it on themselves, or any aspect of the educational and research purposes for which they’re organized. In most cases the endowment “payout” just goes straight into the general fund to pay for everything from faculty and staff salaries and benefits, to debt service to pay off bonds for prior major construction projects, to utility bills, to library acquisitions, to you name it. And yes, some fraction to financial aid, but usually just commingled with other general fund revenues, like tuition. Some schools don’t actually put any endowment payout into FA, and instead just treat all tuition revenue as a single general fund revenue stream and count FA as “discounted” tuition. Other schools do have some portion of their endowment tied up restricted gifts to be used only for specified scholarships, and need to account for that money separately. But it absolutely is NOT the case that all endowment payout must go to FA. That’s not what the yelling in Congress was about. It was about whether Harvard should spend 5% of its endowment annually rather than 3.5%. And if it had spent more, it’s not clear one dime more would have gone to FA, which was already quite generous at Harvard at the time.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom - I totally agree. I love Elon and wish more colleges would follow that model (charge less upfront and give out less in FA). The truly amazing thing about Elon is that they are doing this with a very small endowment. Makes me wonder what some $50k colleges with massive endowments are actually DOING with all that money.</p>
<p>And BTW - when we applied to colleges, DS was full pay, but DD was applying for FA. I have indeed been on both sides of this.</p>
<p>“No, a majority are not full-pay. At Brandeis, for example (just because I recently looked this up), 70% of incoming freshmen applied for FA, and the college decided that 58% of the freshmen had financial need. And that’s at a college that denies admission to some applicants with financial need. The figures are pretty similar at many colleges. At Harvard 60% of students get need-based FA; at Princeton 58.7%; at Yale 54.3%;”</p>
<p>Thank you! But what if you drop “down” to someplace like Duke ( where I happen to be full pay). I like to think they are half or more without financial aid. Am I deluding myself? Wait! Don’t tell me! Okay, I am deluding myself!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.finaid.duke.edu/undergraduate/stats/index.html[/url]”>http://www.finaid.duke.edu/undergraduate/stats/index.html</a></p>
<p>Now I am confused. Should I feel better? I don’t know. </p>
<p>"The advantage of full-pay is not only at the time of admissions but more importantly for the time up to that point. "</p>
<p>Yes!</p>
<p>“Take a look at the increase in minority acceptance rates at the elite colleges.”</p>
<p>I am no good at statistics, but I know they doen’t tell the whole story. </p>
<p>I get that by the time some African American male is in the admission statistics for Stanford, he is looking pretty good. But if things were random, the odds of him GETTING there would be abysmal. His odds of being dead by age 18 would be greater. I know we are off topic here, but isn’t that the problem with statistics?</p>
<p>and for perspective; parents didn’t pay for me or dad, for undergrad or med school. H is first gen, and STILL paying loans 20 years after graduation, and I was 2nd gen, and joined the military.</p>
<p>Re: schools doing some cheeseparing to cut COA:</p>
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<p>Let me make sure I have this straight. In order to move up in the USNWR rankings, a college decides to spend more per student. They might do this by digging into their endowment, or by increased fundraising. They also do this by increasing tuition. So we pay more for tuition so that the college can announce that they’re paying more per student?!?! :eek: What an idiotic system! :mad: </p>
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Most of what I’ve read here on CC from students who are gapped at pricy privates and yet matriculating is that they’re going to be taking out loans. Maybe the students whose families are taking a second job or getting help from within the family just don’t post as much? I agree that this would be a far better way to handle the gap, I just don’t know that it’s really possible or a widely used option. Especially in the current economy. I’d be happy to be proven wrong on this.</p>
<p>shrinkrap, my friend’s daughter-in-law has school loans (undergrad+med) > $250K. She and her husband will be paying this over 30 years.</p>
<p>^ Hope it’s not primary care and psychiatry like us!</p>
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<p>Yes, you’ve got that right. “Financial resources” counts for 10% of a college’s US News ranking. US News defines “financial resources” as “expenditures per student,” and further defines “expenditures per student” as “the average spending per full-time-equivalent student on instruction, research, public service, academic support, student services, institutional support, and operations and maintenance . . . .” In other words, just about everything.</p>
<p>So in principle, a school could raise its US News ranking by raising tuition 25% and recycling all that additional revenue right back into FA. As a result the net cost to students after financial aid would be the same in the aggregate, though there would be distributional effects, with full-pays paying more, students with need getting a higher tuition bill but a corresponding increase in FA, and some students slipping over the line from full-pay into FA. But the spending per student would increase, so the US News ranking would rise. Pretty neat trick. Unless you’re the one paying the bills for one of those full-pay students.</p>
<p>The college would get a bigger boost in its US News ranking, however, if it raised tuition and used the enhanced revenue to raise faculty salaries. That’s because faculty salaries are apparently double-counted by US News. They’re part of “expenditures per student,” but they’re also separately a major component of “faculty resources.” “Faculty compensation,” defined as the average faculty salary and benefits adjusted for regional cost-of-living differences, counts for 35% of the “faculty resources” category, which in turn counts for 20% of the total US News ranking. So if the college poured all that enhanced tuition revenue into faculty raises, it could influence a whopping 17% of its US News ranking–10% as expenditures per student, and 7% for average faculty compensation (35% of 20%).</p>
<p>Again, at the margins this has got to create an incentive for costs to rise. US News equates spending with quality. That motivates colleges to want to spend more, and that drives tuition costs higher. For students on need-based FA the tuition figure is a bit of an illusion; the college says tuition is X but you really only need to pay Y, and it gets to count X - Y as an expenditure. It’s the full-pays who take it in the chops.</p>
<p>Thanks, bclintonk, for that explanation. I had been looking at some LAC prices and wondering why several jumped tuition/fees so high (beyond yearly increases) a few years back. </p>
<p>How does this system make any sense? (It reminds me of the health-care debate. Both higher ed and health care have seen increases go sky high as the government in some shape or form started footing more of the bills.)</p>
<p>As you said: “It’s the full-pays who take it in the chops.”</p>
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<p>I like this policy. It is simple and honest. And I think it is fair.</p>
<p>^^At least they have shared their system-Which is more than some colleges are willing to do. Let’s just hope that they are REALLY following this system!</p>
<p>I would just like to note again that any advantage in admission for being full pay is a completely different animal from the advantage a “developmental” admit gets. For a need-aware school, other things being equal (more or less), the full pay will get in. Being a developmental admit means getting in even if other things aren’t equal (what we mean by a hook). In the Brandeis example, the developmental admit wouldn’t be part of that “going down the list” process–he’d just be at the top of the list.</p>
<p>I would also note that, as far as I can think of, an elite college education is the only luxury item that is priced in this way–in which people get a deep discount because of their financial situation. People who sell yachts certainly don’t have such policies, at least as far as I know.</p>
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<p>Exactly. Which is why “buying your way in” is so misleading as a title – it implies an unqualified student getting in because of Daddy Warbucks. Whereas a full-pay getting in still has to be qualified / in the ballpark.</p>
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<p>Except that there’s a different (lower) cut-off for what counts as being “qualified” for full-pays than for those with financial need at a school like Brandeis.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d prefer it if Brandeis admitted on a need-blind basis and just frankly acknowledged it doesn’t have enough FA money to support all those with need. Let those with need at the bottom of the class figure out for themselves if there’s a way they can pay for it. That’s how most publics do it. And most privates, too, as far as I can tell. Only a smallish number of schools (65-70) claim to be “need-blind/meets 100% of need,” and even many of these have need-aware policies for international and waitlisted applicants, which gives them a lot of wiggle room. A few beyond that, like Brandeis, are partially need-aware/meets 100% of financial need. Most make no pretense to meet 100% of financial need, and routinely “gap” large numbers of accepted students. My kids are full-pay so this doesn’t affect me. But back in the day when I was applying to college, I would have had plenty of need. I’d have much preferred the college accept me, tell me what (if anything) it could give me in FA, and let me figure out whether it made sense financially in comparison to the rest of my options. Instead Brandeis paternalistically (or self-interestedly?) doesn’t even give kids that choice. They have every right to do that, of course. But I have every right to not like it.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, but there are so many other colleges which do exactly what you prefer- admit students but don’t give enough aid. That just sets up people for making gut-wrenching decisions, or bad financial choices, or both.</p>
<p>I think Brandeis’ policy makes it more likely that every student who attends the college has the financial means- either out of pocket or through financial aid. This would allow the students to focus on just getting their education without worrying about the cost.</p>
<p>I do agree that the policy is paternalistic and I’m not sure how it would take into account the possibility that someone might get an outside scholarship.</p>
<p>What is new about this is that some schools that have been need blind for regular admissions, may no longer be need blind. When you apply for schools, you need to know what the status is, regarding whether a school is need blind for you or not. With endowments the way the have going and the economy the way it is, it does not surprise me that more colleges are becoming need aware.</p>
<p>Also, just because a college is need blind for admissions is not helpful if it does not meet 100% or close to it of need. Most colleges are need blind. They simply do not meet your need most of the time. Many schools don’t give out a red cent beyond federal and state money and offer loans. The schools that are being highlighted in this article are the ones who are not only need blind, but meet a substantial amount of need in grants. </p>
<p>Also, if you are considered a “catch” to these need aware school, you can often get your best aid/merit package from one of them. There are advantages to tucking one or two of them onto your list. Some of those colleges that are need blind can be defining need in a very tough way so that it is not easy to qualify for a lot of it. So the designation is not really all useful in itself. You have to truly research what is being done in each case. My advise is to vary the types of such schools in your basket so that you don’t have all of one kind.</p>
<p>Thank you, Pizzagirl and Hunt, for making my point much more clearly than I did.</p>
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<p>Bclintonk, thank you for that wonderful analysis. I think we need to start a new thread - maybe a petition? - to get USNews to start including “VALUE” in their ranking system. If a college can educate for less, they ought to get credit for it. STOP rewarding spending for spending’s sake.</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fantastic article about this in the 2/14 issue of the New Yorker, “The Order of Things - What College Rankings Really Tell Us.” Unfortunately you need to have a subscription to read the whole article online. I saw a hard-copy, it was excellent.</p>
<p>Thank you for mentioning that article - his books are so thought provoking. Here is a brief quote from what one can see on-line:</p>
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<p>Read more [What</a> College Rankings Really Tell Us : The New Yorker](<a href=“The Trouble with College Rankings | The New Yorker”>The Trouble with College Rankings | The New Yorker)</p>
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<p>It is interesting to figure out what advantage a full pay parent has with admissions. Based on Bclintonk’s analysis (which was incredibly brilliant and thorough!) it is pretty clear that full pay is not just a tip factor. A tip factor, theoretically at least, comes in to play only when two students are essentially the same except for this factor. Legacy is often a tip factor at many selective colleges, of course.</p>
<p>So, then is full pay a hook? I usually think of a hook as something that puts a student above others even though others are more qualified. Based again on Bclintonk’s analysis of Brandeis, it appears that full pay IS a hook.</p>
<p>But, perhaps there are different “weights” of hooks? Some hooks give, for example, 10 extra points or 100 extra points. Perhaps some hooks get someone admitted despite clearly not being qualified by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t really know the answer to whether or not hooks are weighted differently. Some people seem to be assuming that developmental admits are granted admission despite NOT being qualified. Is this true? I really don’t know…</p>
<p>But the “kids” seem to suggest that in order for something to truly be a “hook”, it has to be fairly special or rare. I have received good answers to my questions here, and understand we are talking about maybe 60 schools where all this is relevant, and in the Barandeis example, a 58 percent get need based financial aid, 42 percent do not. It sill is hard for me to think of 42 percent of something being “special”. In the Duke example, I’m calculating 49 percent with need based aid/51 percent without.</p>