Chicago - No Barriers

Paying for College
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<p>"No Barriers will include:</p>

<p>Replacement of student loans with grants in all need-based financial aid packages
More than 100 free, nationwide information sessions on college application and financial aid process; part of expanded national outreach to bring information and guidance on selective college application process to more high school students than ever
No College application fees for families seeking financial aid
A simplified financial aid process based primarily on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
New scholarships for underserved and underrepresented groups"</p>

<p>“APPLICATION FEE OR WAIVER
The University of Chicago does not charge a college application fee for students applying for need-based financial aid. For students not applying for need-based financial aid, our application fee is $75, and can be submitted through the Common Application or Universal Application.”</p>

<p>Regardless of why they chose to do this, “No College application fees for families seeking financial aid” and “The University of Chicago does not charge a college application fee for students applying for need-based financial aid” seem pretty unambiguous.</p>

<p>Many schools ask on their application, “Are you applying for Financial Aid?” There is nothing unusual about Chicago asking this, or accepting the applicant’s word that they are, indeed, seeking FA.</p>

<p>"To apply for need-based financial aid at the University of Chicago, you will submit a few documents that allow us to accurately review your family’s financial situation. If you are only interested in applying for Federal student aid, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is all that is required. To apply for UChicago’s institutional aid, including our grant-based financial aid, submit the FAFSA as well as the University of Chicago Financial Aid Worksheet and a copy of your most recent tax returns.</p>

<p>Because each financial aid package is tailored to each family’s particular financial profile, we review these documents on a case-by-case basis. Although you may apply for financial aid at any time, we recommend that you apply for aid when you apply for admission in order to receive an aid decision in a timely manner."</p>

<p>“At the University of Chicago, we pledge to meet 100% of your family’s demonstrated need through a combination of grants, work, and merit-based scholarships.”</p>

<p>I’m not skeptical. They’re not using any weasel language. I’m impressed. Very, very impressed.</p>

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<p>From the No Barriers Affording an Education:</p>

<p>Our Financial Aid office has a budget of $110 million for student aid in the 2014-2015 academic year. The average University of Chicago aid applicant receives $37,500 in scholarships each year.
Family income below $80K
95% who applied received aid</p>

<p>Family income between $80K and $120K
91% who applied received aid</p>

<p>Family income above $120K
59% who applied received aid</p>

<p>How much aid is awarded is the $64,000 (per year) question.</p>

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<p>Right out of U Chicago, thoughts?</p>

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<p>I think that they are making some changes to get more applicants over all, including those who need financial aid and are trying to make it easier for those students. By eliminating the need for NCP financial information, those kids who are in that situation and have a NCP that is the major impediment for getting fin aid, and yet that NCP won’t pay, they will likely get some apps from that quarter if they can get the word out about this. This would have been a definite option for a number of students I’ve known stuck in that quandry. My close friend’s daughter had to commute to a local state u because her NCP, her father made a lot of money and refused to pay a dime for college, and child support ended in that state at the later of high school grad or 18th birthday. </p>

<p>Some questions I have:</p>

<p>!) Will the admissions process still be need blind ?
2) Will the same considerations be made for those from low income families?
3) Any other changes in the UC fin aid formula being made as compared to other year?
4) What if the custodial parent whose info is reported on FAFSA is not the same as the one the student chooses to use for the UC fin aid app?
5) Does UC expect to have more students qualifying for my financial aid as a result of these changes, and are they prepared to meet those additional costs?</p>

<p>The way it appears to me, any family that fills out a FAFSA and is going for federal aid in the form of the unsub Direct loans that just about any student can get regardless of family income and the PLUS to help pay for college costs, again regardless of finanicals as long at they qualify can apply without an app feel. </p>

<p>The main concern I have with the changes is whether there are additional funds being allocated to pay for additional costs if this is indeed going to result in more students being eligible for aid. In my experience, changes made in such situations, unless accompanied by funding, means that the cost for the change is being taken from somewhere within the process. When something screams it wants to SAVE MONEY for me, I usually find that I am paying for that savings in another way. </p>

<p>UC has been aggressively working on getting more apps, upping its ratings, but it’s also been spending a lot of money on some other things. I have no idea how all of this works, but I’m a bit suspicious when I don’t see money coming in to apply to money going out.</p>

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<p>@cptofthehouse the Odyssey Scholarship was started with an anonymous $100M donation and additional funds for this specific program are being raised now to keep this program going.</p>

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<p>I have been debating whether or not I wanted to apply to UChicago or not but this is extraordinary, I’ll definitely be giving it a shot.</p>

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<p>So, if someone applies for aid, but later learns that they didn’t qualify for aid, and they were allowed to apply for free, do they then have to pay an app fee?</p>

<p>There does seem to be a hole. When people APPLY to the school, they haven’t yet submitted FA apps.</p>

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<p>But the waiver of the application fee is not dependent on any determination of financial need. No, they don’t have to pay the application fee. </p>

<p>I think the point is to get people to apply, who otherwise would be reluctant or unwilling to do so out of either a belief that they are just throwing away their application fee, or couldn’t possibly get enough aid to make it affordable. Chicago is basically saying, you can apply and find out at NO RISK.</p>

<p>They want the applications. They want a LOT MORE applications from people who were unsure before. They’ve budgeted for the admissions staff to handle the applications. They don’t expect to recoup what they used to collect in application fees; they now consider that to be a loss leader to get the applications.</p>

<p>It’s not a quid pro quo. There is no hole. They ARE allowed to apply for free, regardless of whether they are later determined to have need or not.</p>

<p>It is possible that Chicago may decide after a year or two that they cannot afford to just waive the application fee for everyone who applies for aid, but that’s how they’re launching it.</p>

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<p>Applying for aid takes time and effort and a great loss of privacy of information. I think that the number applying for financial aid knowing that there’s no way they will qualify will be relatively small. Honestly I would think it would be embarrassing for very high wage earners to do that just to save $75. This policy might encourage more who may be borderline to apply for aid to see if they qualify and save the app fee, but I doubt the UofC minds as it’s still more applications. Their resulting admissions rate may well rival those of Harvard and Stanford. An approximate 50% increase in applications will bring their rate under 6%. It will be interesting to see the results. Hopefully one of the results will be the admission of more low income students, but even if that percent doesn’t change, those students should have much less financial stress during their four years. </p>

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<p>If you apply for financial aid by filling out the FAFSA only for FEDERAL not school aid, you are are applying for fin aid and do not have to pay the app fee. At UC, fin aid is done by the fin aid office, separate from admissions, so the only indication you give to admissions that you are applying for fin aid is by checking the little box “yes” on the application. In general, that is not checked off by those who are just applying for federal aid and not school aid, but for the free app, I would guess you have to do this. As far as I know UC is need blind in admisssions. </p>

<p>I guess the Odyssey fund is supposed to cover the extra costs of this. The big ticket costs are notgoing to be from the free apps. Where it can get expensive is eliminating loans from packages (Direct loans, Perkins loans) and excluding NCP financials for fin aid. My friend’s kids qualified for PELL but did not qualify for a dime in school determined aid due to her ex’s very high income and assets. Her DD who did have the stats for a school like UC would qualify for a quarter million dollars in aid over 4 year. No loans would be in her package and PELL is only $5700, so she’d be one expensive admit to the school. I have another friend who did have her son spend more time with his NCP dad for senior year of high school and the summer before it, since his income was a lot lower than hers. BUt for most PROFILE schools, her income still had to be included. No more Work it right and her son (who was UC material) could qualify for some nice fin aid when he might not have qualified for any. The difference in cost for UC with their new policy would be over $150K over 4 years. It doesn’t take long with those kinds of numbers to rack up quite a bit of money. The loss in application fees out of about 30, 000 applicants (those who would have paid the app fee and now will not be ) is one thing, but throw in a bunch of NCP kids who get some nice fin aid packages due to the exclusion of a deep pocketed parent in the fin picture, no loans in packages which amount to $5-9k (estimated with unsub Direct loans and Perkins) starts adding up.</p>

<p>I wonder if they will be upping work study awards as a lot of colleges did some time ago when they eliminated or limited loans from fin aid packages.</p>

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<p>There are other threads on the Odyssey Scholarship and I was thinking this is one and the same, but obviously it’s not. They don’t seem to mention any maximum income regarding the No Barriers program while they do for the Odyssey. I agree that it might end up very costly to eliminate loans for all students. I was thinking this was just for the lowest income students and in that case the extra expense is “minimal” and covered by the Odyssey Scholarship. They do say that this will be done in phases, so it will be interesting to hear the experiences of applicants here. I can imagine a lot of middle class families adding UofC to their list. </p>

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<p>I think it’s great that UC was able to get funds for low income students to be able to go there for a lot less. I’ve seen students who struggle just to earn the student contribution because there simply are no jobs where they live, and then having a work study requirement that first year at a school as rigorous as UC when they may be disadvantaged in terms of preparation for the coursework is quite the burden. Then loans that can add up as well if the students have both Perkins and Direct. They often are forced to take the unsub portion on top of that and then some if the parents can’t pay their EFC, little as it might be.</p>

<p>But I’m not sure how many more low income students this No Barriers push is going to bring. This might really be expensive as what UC is doing is giving some families a pass that easily could pay the costs and would have. And I don’t mean a $75 app fee, but the actual costs of college. It remains to be seen what this endeavor is going to cost them. </p>

<p>UC has aggressively been working to bring up the ratings and the selective of the school. It’s been quite successful, IMO. Not sure how some other financial moves it has made are going to play. I also have wondering this isn’t being done to offset some moves they’ve made lately to increase pay for some select group of people at the school. NYU got panned soundly for doing the same sort of thing when there is so much they could be doing in increasing fin aid for their students. But then UC has been need blind and has met full need, though not as generously as it is doing now.</p>

<p>I’m a bit cynical about this. My experience with campaigns and fund like the Odyssey, is that there are not enough true very low income applicants that can take advantage of the money. Unless UC is going to give more than a bit of leeway in admissions to that population, it’s going to have extra money there. I ’ d like to see how many more Pell eligible students they end up admitting. This No Barriers program may be there to use some of those funds.</p>

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<p>So suddenly UChicago finaid becomes much better than finaid at most of the Ivies and other top schools. I wonder how they will react.</p>

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<p>The example run of Chicago’s NPC upthread resulted in a net price of $5 (five dollars) for a student from a family with income $20,000 plus $3,000 EITC. No self-help (loans or work earnings) was listed. Of course, results may vary, but if you are really curious, try various scenarios in the NPC.</p>

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<p>Easily waiving the application fee, eliminating the CSS Profile and its fee, and not using non-custodial parent information can remove some common barriers that inhibit low income or first generation students from applying. Remember that the application and CSS Profile fees could be a significant amount of money for low income families. Non-custodial parent information could be an absolute barrier when the non-custodial parent is uncooperative with financial aid paperwork, or unwilling to contribute but has income that will put the net price out of reach without the contribution. Also, each additional requirement is just one more thing to keep track of (possibly forgetting) out of a long list of things, particularly if the student attends a school where counselors have more pressing needs than to assist and support the rare student applying to a highly selective college.</p>

<p>Chicago requires SAT reasoning or ACT, but makes SAT subject tests optional, meaning that SAT subject tests are not a barrier. But it does require two teacher recommendations, a counselor report, and a counselor midyear report, any of which can be barriers for low income or first generation students.</p>

<p>However, the absolute number of low income or first generation applicants who would apply with a reasonable chance of admission is likely very small compared to the number of such applicants from the typical demographic of this forum.</p>

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<p>The UofC historically was willing to spend a decent amount of merit money to get top students (one of the few Ivy-equivalents to do so). As they’ve risen in the rankings, you can see that they have cut back their expenditure on merit money. They may not have announced anything regarding merit money, but I would not be surprised if they cut back even more on spending money there if this new policy gets them the numbers and student body that they want.</p>

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<p>I was on a board once upon a time for a program that actively looked for low income children/families that wanted what we had to offer. One year, we got a very nice grant that had to be used for financial need. Couldn’t use it for anything else. </p>

<p>Well, we could not get enough needy kids that were qualified even after reducing the bar to where it really was an embarassment. Basically, you just had to be interested enough to apply. So what did we do so that we did not lose the money? First of all we pulled all our other fin aid funds that we could into other places, so that this fund was depleted first. Then we widened the definition of financial need so that most everyone was eligible for a piece of the action. </p>

<p>Yeah, I was party and privvy of that.</p>

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<p>Personally I think there’s more highly qualified, low income students than there are spaces for them in the top schools. In your situation cptofthehouse, how were students notified that this financial aid was available to them? Did any of the board members go to schools to actively recruit students? Generally high schools with a high percentage of low income students have understaffed guidance offices and getting kids to apply may have been seen as just one more thing to do. I don’t know. I would also guess that higher ups in these schools are more familiar with the students who are always in trouble than the ones who are excelling. Generally their goal is to get the highest proportion of students graduated from high school, and little time is available to assist their top students with college and scholarship applications.</p>

<p>What I do see is how incredibly competitive programs geared towards low income students with stellar academics are. Some of them who don’t make it as a finalist might still be accepted into top schools, but I would imagine that a lot don’t and are attending community colleges and other low cost options. A NY Times article noted that out of 12 top colleges, including the eight ivies, UC enrolled the fewest number of Pell Grant recipients. Their new policies will hopefully change that, but I doubt that it was due to a lack of Pell Grant applicants that their numbers were low. </p>

<p>This goes beyond the scope of UC, but the problem is so much greater than just looking at admission and financial aid at the elite colleges. They are the most generous. The problem is far greater at colleges in the USN ratings of 20, 30, 40, 100 and beyond. In the link below, at the bottom of page 2 is a table which shows just how much higher of a percentage of income is required from the lowest income students. This is just plain wrong. Some states do have affordable options as their state universities provide excellent educations and their costs are low, but many do not. For these students, their options are extremely limited if they’re not at the academic level of the elite colleges or they weren’t admitted. I know that farther down the list of selectivity the endowments are much less so there’s less to provide for financial aid. Other than for community colleges and a few state schools, the federal grants seem much too low based on tuition and fees. </p>

<p><a href=“https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/news/documents/PricedOut.pdf”>https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/news/documents/PricedOut.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Just want to add that the problem of these students being overlooked by guidance isn’t restricted just to high schools with a large percentage of lower income students. I would image that in schools where most are well off the lower income students might well not be given the same attention as those whose parents are in the guidance office making sure their student gets into the schools they think s/he should. With so many demanding so much time from the guidance counselors, again the lower income students, who may not have parental support and may not be prone to advocating for themselves, may be overlooked. </p>

<p>If a student says they’ll be attending community college, that’s the college option requiring the least work for the guidance office. Good guidance counselors with the time might encourage this student to pursue scholarships and other options. I’d also imagine that these students are unknown by the guidance counselors prior to giving their college choice info. It’s likely that it’s individual teachers who may be more aware of their abilities and potential. Maybe the key is getting the scholarship info directly to them. Don’t know if many of them would have the time to invest as their administrative tasks are incredibly burdensome these days.</p>

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<p>Well, I just did the NPC for Chicago and came up w/ a net price of less than $5K. Wow! </p>

<p>It’s a 12 hour drive, so DS wouldn’t be coming home that often, but definitely worth looking at. </p>

<p>Never mind, no Engineering. :(</p>