<p>" From mini, we have an assertion that the students receiving need-based aid are better qualified and more capable."</p>
<p>I don’t have to make such an assertion. The colleges themselves are making that assertion by accepting students they have to provide aid over those for whom they do not. As to why they do that, you should ask 'em. (No good college is going to tell you they are accepting less qualiifed and capable applicants over more qualified ones.)</p>
<p>MD mom-- I am sorry, I still don’t get it. A jaguar is out of my range, although I am perfectly qualified to drive one… To me, the college is selling also just selling a product, you decided that the price of the two top colleges your daughter was admitted to exceeded the value and chose another option that was a better value. </p>
<p>We also do not qualify for aid-- Son was admitted to WashU, but we felt that the price there exceeded the value. He was given a large merit award at another school, we have paid a deposit there. He was also waitlisted at Harvard-- which is priced about where WashU is, but if he clears the waitlist there, we will pay the full cost of attendance without qualms-- because we feel the value equals or exceeds the cost.</p>
<p>“students who are financial aid recipients tend to have a slightly lower graduation rate than non-aid recipients” - Cornell University ILR School, 2006</p>
<p>If financial aid recipients are more qualified and more capable than full-pay students, why do they graduate at lower rates?</p>
<p>I’m just curious here…is there ANY college in the country that gives NO financial aid to ANY students? If so, what is the tuition?</p>
<p>“If financial aid recipients are more qualified and more capable than full-pay students, why do they graduate at lower rates?”</p>
<p>The single most common reason why students don’t graduate are changes in family finances and family situation. One major illness in the family, and the student may be called home to care for the rest of the family, or earn outside income to help support the family. Most colleges do not meet anywhere close to 100% of need, and changes at home may simply push the student over the edge where full-time college attendance is no longer an optio.</p>
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[QUOTE=electronblue]
I think race should be taken out of this discussion. The kid with need isn’t necessarily an URM. And URMs can be wealthy.
[/quote]
Noted, and fair. So often we see the argument that URMs deserve the break they receive in admissions because they are disadvantaged… it’s easy to forget this point. Thanks, electronblue; I won’t use “URM” as shorthand for “economically disadvantaged” again.
[QUOTE=vicariousparent]
A brilliant, industrious poor URM student from a bad public school may get an SAT score of 2000/2400, is the only student in school to take AP Calculus, gets a score of 4, plays a pretty good game of basketball in the neighborhood, and works at the local burger king a few hours a week.</p>
<p>A rich non-URM student from an elite private school may get an SAT score of 2100/2400 after private tutoring, an AP Psych score of 4 after extensive coaching, be on the varsity tennis team, and do an expensive ‘service trip’ in Costa Rica.
[/quote]
Sure, these students “may” exist. And a full-freight student may also be a brilliant, industrious middle-class kid from a single-parent family whose mom works three jobs – and get an SAT score higher than either of those you posted after practicing with a prep book, be one of four students in his decent public school to take AP Calculus BC, get a 5 on the test with no coaching, push beyond the school’s curriculum with independent study, work without pay as a summer camp counselor, and throw himself into every extracurricular opportunity his school offers, shining in a handful of those pursuits. What’s your point?</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=NewHope33]
If our goal is to educate “the best and brightest” then only full-pay students go to college. If the goal is social remediation we keep the current system.
[/quote]
This seems to fall into the IP&O category. I would argue against the first sentence just as I take issue with mini’s assertion; I don’t see a direct correlation between a student’s ability to complete college coursework and his parents’ ability to pay tuition, room, and board. I recognize that I’m bucking all the educational research that says socioeconomic status the only factor that correlates directly with academic success… but I still have a problem with the notion that one economic class is inherently academically superior to another.</p>
<p>Hope’s second sentence may have some merit, though. How else do we explain the practice of pricing middle-class students out of certain educational institutions generally perceived to be “better,” in order to ensure that students of lower socioeconomic status can attend? If the student who is deemed able to afford t/r/b attends and graduates with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, charged solely for the purpose of paying the t/r/b of another student who is deemed unable to afford it and will ultimately graduate without the same debt… is this something other than “social remediation?”</p>
<p>mini has asserted that it is. This is the first time I’ve noticed an argument that the full-freight student is actually receiving a benefit for the surcharge – and, further, that the benefit is actually provided by the recipient of the surcharge. That is interesting to me – more interesting than the argument that supporting other students is somehow the full-freight student’s moral obligation (although I think that’s also worth probing further). I’d like to see that argument fleshed out a little bit, beyond hypothetical student cases invented purely to support the case.</p>
<p>"If financial aid recipients are more qualified and more capable than full-pay students, why do they graduate at lower rates?</p>
<p>I assume they leave for financial reasons - - because school is too expensive or to get a job and assist their families financially. </p>
<p>I’m still amazed by the number and tone of posts regarding need-based aid, compared to the number/tone of posts regarding merit grants. If a family is paying fully tuition, it is subsidizing any/every student who receives tuition remission from the school – why are so many posters troubled by only grants too those whom the college/uni has determined to need financial assistance?</p>
<p>This isn’t it a new argument. In fact, it was the reasoning Harvard first used in the 1920-1950 period in advocating for the use of SATs (and actually using them) - that the identification of highly capable students from various backgrounds - economic and geographical - would improve the entire character of the Harvard experience - for everyone. It had nothing to do with moral obligation at all.</p>
<p>Similar findings in a Maryland study:</p>
<p>“the graduation rates of non-recipients were only somewhat higher” - A Comparison of the Retention, Transfer and Graduation Rates of Need-Based Financial Aid Recipients at Maryland Public Colleges and Universities with the Performance of Non-Recipients, 2004</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=mini]
I don’t have to make such an assertion. The colleges themselves are making that assertion by accepting students they have to provide aid over those for whom they do not.
[/quote]
This strikes me as circular and fallacious. Based on your earlier statement, we’re talking about two students who were accepted – one who receives aid based on financial need, and one who pays a rate that has been increased for the express purpose of providing for that financial need. Your assertion in posts #4 and #14 was that the student receiving need-based aid is somehow better than the student paying full freight, and that the student who pays full freight is actually receiving a benefit from associating with the student who receives need-based aid.</p>
<p>It seems now that the basis of your assertion is, “Colleges require some students to subsidize others because the others are better, and we know this to be true because the colleges are doing it.” If that’s the sum total of your argument… well, I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed, because I thought the reasoning behind a provocative statement like yours would be a little more interesting. But it’s good to have it out there. Thanks for clarifying.</p>
<p>I’ve seen full-pay students similarly leave due to unexpected financial hardships. At my D1’s school, Purdue, half of her honors engineering floor is worried about whether they can afford to come back in the fall. The only students not worried are those who qualify for financial aid based on their FAFSA (2008 income). Middle income families may not be able to pay full cost next year - loans are increasingly harder to come by, except the relatively low-value federal student loans.</p>
<p>Edit: I should also add that the students from wealthy families are also not worried. This is most definitely a middle class problem - not low enough of an income to qualify for financial aid, but not high enough to be able to comfortably afford to pay full cost.</p>
<p>“If I paid $600, it is none of my business that the passenger in the seat next to me paid $200”</p>
<p>Sure it is. If I knew that the person next to me paid $200, I’d want to know how and implement their system myself. In a corporate sense, a company would go out of business if their competitor had a lower cost of doing business outside of a muti-company monopoly.</p>
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<p>The example you cite and the two examples I cited make one point: Every applicant needs to be evaluated in the context of where he/she is coming from. </p>
<p>If I could choose only two of these applicants, I would choose the kid you describe and the URM I described. I would offer financial aid in such a way as to maximize the likelihood that both these applicants could attend. That might mean the brilliant industrious middle-class kid gets little or no aid (depending on your definition of middle-class).</p>
<p>“This strikes me as circular and fallacious.”</p>
<p>It IS circular. Again, if you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with the college, not with me. The better colleges will tell you - point blank - that they accept the “most qualified” applicants. By definition, those who are not accepted are “less qualified”, or they would have accepted them.</p>
<p>As for fallacious, well I think I am more likely to trust college admissions officers who are charged with carrying out their share of the colleges’ institutional missions than I am a parent on CC.</p>
<p>“It IS circular. Again, if you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with the college, not with me. The better colleges will tell you - point blank - that they accept the “most qualified” applicants. By definition, those who are not accepted are “less qualified”, or they would have accepted them.”</p>
<p>Perhaps you don’t understand logic and debate.</p>
<p>Using circular reasoning to make a point is fallacious. Which means that your point isn’t supported by your reasoning. Trying to then palm off the reasoning on someone else is disingenuous. If you have a point to make, then you should supply the reasoning. If your reasoning is wrong, then you should admit it and withdraw the point.</p>
<p>“As for fallacious, well I think I am more likely to trust college admissions officers who are charged with carrying out their share of the colleges’ institutional missions than I am a parent on CC.”</p>
<p>Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:</p>
<p>Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.</p>
<p>This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premisses can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). [1]</p>
<p>(Wikipedia)</p>
<p>If you don’t like Wikipedia, then I recommend I. Copi’s book: Introduction to Logic.</p>
<p>mini, I think the discussion is whether (and if so, why) the ‘full-pay’ students are actually 'full-pay plus a surcharge". </p>
<p>One could argue that the ‘price’ charged by a college is proportionate to how much the college values a given accepted student. But colleges don’t actually say that- they don’t say “we charge you tuition in proportion to how qualified you are”. They talk about ‘meeting financial need’…a rather socialist idea.</p>
<p>I understand the logical problem, thank you. But I am also aware that this is not a problem of logic, but one of power. College admissions officers decide who is “most qualified”, and they get to choose the definition of “most qualified” - which is, those applicants they admitted. They have the power both to choose the applicants and to define the term - they NEVER admit the less qualified candidate.</p>
<p>In both cases, their circular reasoning is not supported by their logic, but by their power. </p>
<p>As for authoritative, again, the appeal is not to logic per se, but to power. Since no one else has the “power” to make such decisions, the claim that they accept the “most qualified” candidates is not easy to challenge, except by those who set the institutional mission (if the admissions officers don’t carry it out, they are fired.)</p>
<p>Perhaps you don’t understand the logic of power.</p>
<p>[One could argue that the ‘price’ charged by a college is proportionate to how much the college values a given accepted student. But colleges don’t actually say that- they don’t say “we charge you tuition in proportion to how qualified you are”.]</p>
<p>Even then it’s only a very limited view of the person. Timing of applications and other forms have a determining factor not related to your qualifications too.</p>
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<p>The education process as implemented in most countries is socialist. That’s just a descriptive; not normative term. Unless you want to make it normative.</p>
<p>[But I am also aware that this is not a problem of logic, but one of power.
In both cases, their circular reasoning is not supported by their logic, but by their power.]</p>
<p>We’re not talking about their logic or reasoning; we’re talking about an assertion that you made. If you wish to rephrase that it is their reasoning but not your belief, then it would be different but it seems that you accept their reasoning.</p>
<p>“Perhaps you don’t understand the logic of power.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter as we’re dealing with arguments. It seems that you’re desperately trying to distract from a very simple issue.</p>
<p>“mini, I think the discussion is whether (and if so, why) the ‘full-pay’ students are actually 'full-pay plus a surcharge”. </p>
<p>This is a fare question. My alma mater, #1 LAC, argues that it costs them $80k/yr. to educate a student. This means that every so-called full-pay student gets a $30k “scholarship” or “subsidy” (they try to hit me up every year). In other words, all students receive substantial financial aid, either from present alums, donors, or etc., or past ones in the form of endowment spending. All of a sudden there are no such animals as full-pay students, the only question being what degree of subsidy each receives.</p>
<p>Now, personally speaking, if I had my druthers, if it cost $80k, they’d charge $80k for full-pay students - among prestige colleges, college tuition relative to income/assets of full-pay students is now the least expensive it has been in almost 30 years (or was before the recession). Then they could free up all the resources for folks who “needed it”. Prestige of the college would likely go up rather than down. (Good ol’ Veblen “Theory of the Leisure Class”). Won’t happen though - the chances are about the same as the college admitting it accepts “less qualified” applicants over “more qualified” ones.</p>
<p>“then it would be different but it seems that you accept their reasoning.”</p>
<p>I DO accept their reasoning, as I do not have the POWER to challenge their logic.</p>