<p>"The unfairness is that it may be too late for you to know what's going on to do the best job for your first child."</p>
<p>Fortunately, I did enough things right, like keeping assets out of the kids' names, that any 'mistakes' are not going to make much of a difference. Nevertheless, my junior will apply to a financial safety.</p>
<p>jaybee: yup, that is the conundrum and I think that's where the cries of unfair come from...why should a friend whose family did not plan ahead be given a "full ride" to a life changing school when "my kid" is stuck at big state U because I cannot afford to tap the equity and still live in the home. It is that same situation as the kid who asks about A in honors vs. A in AP and the answer is A in AP....if you do not quite cut it and do not make it into or want to go (mostly back east) to certain Ivy's or 568 schools, you face a large jump down in the type of experience your student will have. There is a dramatic difference between the 568 schools and the next tier of LACs or local privates which are FAFSA only or between 568/Ivy and the public Unis. It is a bitter pill to swallow.</p>
<p>But, the whole system will always have inequities, situations where it doesn't quite come out right and "fair." </p>
<p>There is simply no way to have a system with formulas wherein one given situation will cause some one else to be better off than you and it doesn't "feel" right. So, we have to learn the system and find the schools which we can afford. I feel badly for people making that initial discovery getting slammed here by those of us who have already learned the sad truth and adapted to it. I perceive most of the whining to be from those initial discoveries of the unfairness of life ;) The system is doing the best it can, but there will always be examples of some one we feel should not benefit, but does, or some one who seems deserving, but has the wrong financial profile. Que sera`</p>
<p>My first college kid had a friend in school who was not that much below us financially and who got a "full ride" (what ever that meant) from an Ivy that believes in no loans...the kid is now with Goldman Sachs..so it worked for them and that was a very deserving kid. However, there are plenty of deserving kids whose parents make enough more than that kid's family such that they cannot and should not afford to pay the difference for a school like that or who cannot get into the schools with those packages, and are left with not having such a dramatic life changing experience.</p>
<p>jaybee, in doing the best for the first kid, I was more thinking about finding those middle tier schools which do offer merit and only use FAFSA.</p>
<p>"The current system strongly favors high asset families, but at the same time is set up to discourage students and families from taking measures to increase their earnings."</p>
<p>What else would you expect from a system designed by socialists. The merit blind schools are firmly commited to redistributive economics. The existence of the great American middle class is an afront to virtually everything they believe to be true about capitalism and living proof that Marx was full of it (Kerl not the president of Amherst though they are birds of a feather).</p>
<p>I don't think that taking FA from a school like Amherst violates any American ideals. My D qualified highly, in fact, exceeded the average and max at Amherst, (she found out that she received a 1 ranking in their admissions) and was offered merit aid at other schools. The difference is that Amherst does not give merit aid, and the FA we view as in lieu of that. The kids that attend overall have high enough credentials to get merit aid from those schools that offer it. Amherst merely believes that any student who qualifies is treated equally with all other students. No one student is better or worse than the others. So perhaps that principle most closely matches the "all men are created equal" ideal of this great country.</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is a dramatic difference between the 568 schools and the next tier of LACs or local privates
[/quote]
Aaargh.... 568 schools (consensus methodology) are NOT the "best" or most "generous" - they are merely a group of 28 schools that have agreed to treat home equity and step-parent income a certain way. That doesn't mean that all the other private schools have terrible policies - my daughter got a much better package from a non-568 group college than from the 568 group college that accepted her. She also had a slightly better offer from Fordham (private, safety for her) than from Chicago (568 school). </p>
<p>Strong students tend to end up with a very good array of financial aid offers, no matter where they end up along the selectivity ladder -- all the schools want them, and almost all will do their best to make the college affordable to them. It is the weaker students who have more difficulty getting good aid -- but for them, the financial aid policies of the elite schools are irrelevant, because they can't get accepted in the first place. </p>
<p>I do care about those less stellar students and think it is important that college be made affordable to them... but my frustration is with the fact that most detractors of the financial aid system don't seem to have a clue as to how it works.</p>
<p>And I don't know about other states, but my personal experience with the California publics is that they did a much better job of meeting need than all but one of the privates my kids applied to. The private college that actually underbid a UC for my son was a lower-tier LAC -- not an elite, and only $5K of his award was labeled as "merit".</p>
<p>"I don't think that's just the attitude found here. Don't the colleges themselves consider FA a given as well? If a school provides $10,000 on average to the students enrolled, why don't they just lower the cost of tuition by $10,000 and do away with financial aid? Wouldn't that be more efficient than the whole FA process"</p>
<p>Yes it would but that is not the goal in Merit Blind schools. The only meager means at the hands of the ersatz socialists who run these places for redistributing wealth, which is their goal, is through differential pricing. Now of course the paltry sums they manage to wrest fron the wealthy and redistribute to the "needy" are inconsequential to the wealthy even if they seem like the hand of God to the recipients.</p>
<p>The comfortable administrators get to fleece the sons and daughters of the wealthy so they can play Lady Bountiful to the "lower classes", and make no mistake they do consider them intellectual and moral "lower classes". Meanwhile it is the middle class that gets priced out of the market. They can't afford to pay 50% than the education is worth and don't "deserve" to pay fair market value, at least in the Marxian delusions of your average college administrator.</p>
<p>So I am still waiting for somebody to explain to me why a system that charges $2 to one person, $1 to another, and $0.01 to a third is sensible or fair? So is Middle America and that is why it only constitutes 7% of Amhert's enrollment.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Calmom, that mid-range of LAC's that I mentioned (not 528's, but the $40-45K midatlantic crowd, seem to give out very little information about their interpretation of the CSS. Lafayette did have an online calculator of their own, which gave me the worst case I had seen yet.</p>
<p>It just seems like I'm throwing darts blindfolded, and I hate to drag my kid all over the midatlantic and end up with a handful of acceptances and an EFC of $45K everywhere. I don't guess you can call these places and ask how they interpret the CSS? :)</p>
<p>ejr1, don't meant to offend anyone. It just irks me when posters here start talking whether it is "profitable" in terms of FA for a spouse to work, changing to a new job or how best to put your assets to maximize FA.</p>
<p>FA should be given to those who are truly in need, i.e., no amounts of sacrifice or planning from the family would be sufficient. I had a discussion with an Amherst prof just three nights ago, who told me that I am to expect another hefty increase in fees this coming year. He was shocked that there are parents who would refuse to contemplate FA.</p>
<p>Again, i don't mean to offend you but I do find it odd that you rationalize the FA in terms of your D "qualified highly...exceed the average and max"....I am not quite sure what is meant by exceeding the max nor why exceeding the average is deserving FA.</p>
<p>According to Amherst, every student is receiving a subsidy of more than $25,000 a year, even if they are paying list price, representing costs versus payment. Compared with this, the majority of students receiving financial aid are getting an extra pittance. </p>
<p>And, if you added up the total subsidy, it quickly becomes apparent that those paying full-freight or nearly full-freight are the ones receiving the overwhelming bulk of "financial aid".</p>
<p>I don't find it disturbing at all. They make the rules; we are all entitled plan our lives according to those rules, as long as we play fair.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't guess you can call these places and ask how they interpret the CSS?
[/quote]
Why not? Have you tried?</p>
<p>I didn't bother asking in advance -- I just told my kids that they had to apply to our in-state publics and that they were free to apply anywhere else, but that attendance would be based on financial aid. We won some and we lost some.</p>
<p>I figure it's kind of like eBay. If I see something I want, I place a bid.... if the bidding gets too high, then I'll pull out. I've learned a few things along the way about bidding strategy, but I don't stay out of the bidding merely for fear that it will go too high. </p>
<p>But I don't see any reason why you can't call the financial aid department early on and ask specific questions. My guess is that at some schools you will find the staff very helpful and forthcoming... and at others you won't. That might in itself be an important consideration for the future.</p>
<p>calmom...
I work at the University of Chicago, sometimes with work-study students. I've met 3 California students, 2 of whom would prefer to be at Berkeley and were admitted, and one of whom would prefer to be at UCLA and was admitted. They came to the University of Chicago because for them, it was cheaper.
The UofC primarily gives need based aid with a small percentage of students, about 4%, receiving merit aid. I think some of the merit aid is slotted for Chicago Public School kids. I didn't question them further, but my impression was that they low income kids not getting merit aid.
The cost difference must have been pretty meaningful because they all gave the impression that they would have preferred to be back in California.</p>
<p>Mini, i would love to have a good accountant going through their book. </p>
<p>EMM1, Okay, I mean to be provocative for the sake of more lively discussions. Haven't I heard your rationalization being echoed from "welfare queens"?</p>
<p>
Because we live in a system where some people are paid salaries of $500,000 annually for less than full time work, and other people are working 2 full time jobs and earning less than $50K with both of them together. </p>
<p>If you want fair, then we should start with fair compensation for all. How about a law that says that any increases in salaries at large corporations must be pro rata across the board? If the CEO gets a 20% increase, then so does every employee. </p>
<p>And equal work for equal pay for everyone. Why should a lawyer who works for a large private firm earn more than a lawyer who works for the district attorney's office? Why should a highly qualified research scientist be paid less if he holds a teaching position in a major university than if he gets a job in private industry? </p>
<p>If there is any differential in pay, it should be based on implicit social value. Let's pay our cops and firemen and public school teachers more ! I've never been stranded out on the road at midnight with a disabled vehicle feeling a desperate need for a stockbroker. How much do dispatch operators and tow truck drivers who are on the job at 2:00 am earn? Give them 6 figures annually and maybe things would start to look "fair".</p>
<p>"According to Amherst, every student is receiving a subsidy of more than $25,000 a year"</p>
<p>Yes the famous free lunch. No doubt an institution can operate indefinitely selling a $65,000 product for $40,000 and at the same time keep growing its endowment :-) That assertion is so ridiculous on its face that only a complete naif could possible believe it. Amherst cannot tell you how much an undergraduate education costs anymore than Oscr Meyer casn tell you what a pound of baloney costs to produce. Every part of the pig the leftover scraps of which go into the baloney go into other products as well. You cannot isolate the costs. What you can do is measure the total revenue stream and in the case of Amherst that is a positive and untaxed number of dollars after all expenses are accounted for.</p>
<p>BTW I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can make you a good deal on.</p>
<p>danas... the UC system met full need or close to it for both of my kids. The awards were a little heavy on loans, but Chicago was It would have cost my daughter around $10K a year to attend a UC campus, around $25K to attend Chicago. </p>
<p>I doubt very seriously that most California residents would have to pay more to attend the UC system. There may be unusual financial situations that could produce anomalous results -- but my guess is that you are talking to students who are beneficiaries of a leveraging process that may favor particular students over others. Sometimes private schools fashion lopsided "need-based" packages to further goals of athletic or minority recruitment.</p>
<p>calmom...
It is possible that the UofC changes packages for students they are particularly interested in, such as dropping loans. I don't really know.
It's also possible that the higher ranking of the UofC made a difference they weren't acknowledging.
I do know they all told me the same thing.</p>
<p>calmom...
It also sounds like you might be middle class. These kids were below that.</p>
<p>Slightly off-topic, but it amazes me how a college tells you to borrow from a third party to pay them and calls it "financial aid"!</p>