<p>Bottom line, as I see it, is that colleges offer financial aid to maximize their yield…and their own solvency. </p>
<p>Parents and students apply, accept, and pay for college to maximize value (real or perceived), and their own solvency.</p>
<p>It is like any business transaction. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. And there really isn’t a monopoly, the customers truly do have a huge number of choices. </p>
<p>So making a fuss of these things sounds like “whining”…which I admit, can be fun sometimes ;-)</p>
<p>I think colleges, other than the HYPS group, are trying to offer finaid not only to maximize yield and solvency, but also their own stats (grade/SATs, NMFs, class rank, you name it) – which is an offshoot of yield – they want yield of some kids more than others.</p>
<p>^^ kayf, yes, but they want to maximize their own stats because eventually that helps them remain solvent and generally makes their life a lot easier.</p>
<p>We have public money being spent in a very inefficient way. So this is an issue for public debate. Personally I think that Citigroup -> AIG -> GM -> college.</p>