But my point is that they aren’t meeting “need” when they do that – rather, in many cases, they are doing just the opposite – coming up with rules that allow them to reduce financial aid expenditures, for the sake of their own economic needs and not the economic needs of the students and their families.</p>
<p>The private colleges could band together and agree to henceforth call all admitted students “kangaroos” — but that wouldn’t turn human beings into marsupials.</p>
<p>How can someone decide that UC Santa Cruz has “gapped” my kid when they offer an award far more generous than U of Chicago, which supposedly has met full need? The “need” of the family is a constant – it doesn’t change based on the whims of different colleges. Nor does the College Board implementation of newspeak change reality – College Board has succeeded in creating its own financial aid marketing bonanza, and giving the colleges market-tested words to sell it. But that’s all it is.</p>
<p>–
Also, I’d point out that in the example I gave above, my daughter’s college used “professional judgment” to unilaterally jigger the FAFSA numbers to make my daughter Pell eligible – the numbers I ran didn’t come out that way. So much for “must” – colleges have tremendous power to alter the numbers going into the formula. My d. would NOT have had Pell money if she had opted to attend one of the UC’s which admitted her.</p>
<p>There is no actual fixed “need” number for a family; it’s just opinion, no right, no wrong. Try to imagine schools being told by families what their need is! Ludicrous!</p>
<p>When schools don’t meet the opinions families have of their need, families turn down the financial aid offers. Yet schools routinely distribute all the financial aid they have budgeted.</p>
<p>I need to clarify this (was pointed out on another thread):
<p>The need of your family and mine and the next guy’s may be constant. That doesn’t mean “meet full need” translates to: we get everything we want. We are asking for a gift, in order to send our kid to an expensive college. A freebie, a pass. It’s not an entitlement. Our kids do have other choices. It’s hard to say, But this other formula, the Fafsa, said I should get X!</p>
<p>Fafsa EFC alone is not explanation enough. Not until it does become that gold standard. A recent thread was posted about a family with 200k income. The Fafsa estimate (no assets or misc included) showed need of 24k. FA was only 10k. Didn’t the school understand his parents had a new house, new cars and several prep school tuitions to pay for? Didn’t they read his EFC? Didn’t they care about his “family need?” (Nice kid, btw, determined to take the loans he needs.)</p>
<p>The Fafsa is deemed by many to be an insufficient guage of a family’s resources. If the argument is that some families assume what is meant by “meet full need,” then we have to agree to disagree about assumptions.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that “need” must be determined by the FAFSA – I said that it must be determined by a transparent, consistent process. It should not be the unilateral, secret “policies” of each college’s financial aid office.</p>
<p>They have the right to calculate their discounts and their enrollment management determinations by any formula they want, but it’s a lie to promote that determination as “meeting 100% of need”. The only “need” met by that process is the college’s own budgetary control.</p>
Your original post made it sound like you expected more FA than you received. Since those expectations were obviously flawed, I believe that you didn’t do enough research into financial aid before making the ED commitment–that is, if you had known that need-based aid would be unaffordable, it would make much more sense to forgo ED and apply widely RD for merit aid. But as rockvillemom says, it is great that you and your D both understand the financial realities; many families get tied up emotionally and make financial decisions that they later regret.</p>
<p>
You ask a question, so I will answer. You were gapped by the UCs, plain and simple–by definition. Need is not, and should not be expected to be, the same at every college. And misunderstood by the private colleges, although if you choose to view that as “gamed,” that is your choice.</p>
<p>
And therein lies a fundamental disagreement. I believe that “need” is NEVER constant, that for it to be constant is impossible. Because by definition, “financial need” is determined by a unique formula that may or may not account for various factors. </p>
<p>Here’s an example: you have 200k in equity on one, primary home, and a 60k income. How much of that home equity should “count”?</p>
<p>1) 0, i.e. FAFSA
2) more than 0, as nearly all private colleges have decided, because having any equity in a home is a type of asset and a financial security that renters don’t have
2a) capped at equivalent to one year’s income–some generous colleges will use this method
2b) capped at some arbitrary amount, sometimes based on cost of living or zip code
2c) not capped</p>
<p>Is there one right answer? I believe, no. Thus, there cannot be one omniscient definition of “need.” Many families prefer FAFSA to PROFILE because it ignores most complicating factors, thus resulting in a more generous package–but that doesn’t make it, or any other formula, the most fair. And for other families, such as those with high medical expenses or support costs for elderly relatives, the FAFSA EFC can actually be higher than that calculated by institutional methodology after professional judgment. Moreover, some schools have a private formula that is more generous, by default, than the PROFILE IM. It’s all variable–and there’s no right or wrong.</p>
<p>
You did, however, name FAFSA (or DOE, which amounts to the same thing) as the best “neutral arbiter” of need. For reasons that I have already outlined in great detail, I disagree.</p>
<p>I’m all for transparency in FA. (Consistency, given the accepted prevalence of preferential packaging–cf. Muhlenberg’s excellent web page on this practice–is a bit too much to ask for.) But reality is opacity, and colleges are not lying when they claim to meet 100% of need (unless they happen to be Lafayette, but no one really knows what’s going on there) if, on paper, they actually do meet 100% of need. If “full need” was truly a meaningless lie, then there would be no difference in FA policies or generosity between full-need colleges and everyone else, when there patently is such a difference–on the whole, mind, not for one particular family. Average debt load is significantly lower for a Williams graduate than for a Lewis & Clark graduate, I’d bet, and I haven’t checked.</p>
<p>…“If I say no to her first choice, and she is forced to go to SJSU for example, because she doesn’t get accepted to any of the others, she’ll hate me forever I fear. Ok maybe not forever, but for a long time. She is well aware of our financial situation. My wife is willing to do anything to send her to the expensive school, and doesn’t care about the consequences to the rest of our life. Living in a tent and eating beans & rice is OK with her, so she says”…</p>
<p>Simbot_ This the finale of your first post- That is what I meant by “find yourself in a bind”…Guess I misunderstood.</p>
<p>That’s gambling in my book. If your top choice fails to come through with a decent FA package, then you’ve locked yourself out of other possible selections in that tier, some of which might have produced a better offer. By unilaterally disarming, you’ll never have a chance to compare those offers. That’s a big risk to take for the small extra bump in admissions.</p>
<p>ED is not for folks with financial concerns.</p>
<p>“it’s a lie to promote that determination as “meeting 100% of need”.”</p>
<p>Ok, we understand where we disagree. At least that is settled!</p>
<p>Also settled is that FA is confusing; the rules and policies are complex. But, as recipients of these gifts from the colleges, we don’t (IMHO) have much justification to make demands about how they give their money away. We can praise some schools for being transparent, but even there it’s hard to make demands. Schools admit the applicants they want the most, without saying much about how the choices are made. If a school’s gift policy is opaque, we don’t need to apply there.</p>
<p>“If your top choice fails to come through with a decent FA package, then you’ve locked yourself out of other possible selections in that tier, some of which might have produced a better offer.”</p>
<p>I already pointed out that the policies of private colleges discriminate against a distinct group of students, and provided links to specific articles & some figures. It only takes one additional step of online research to tie that to a de facto race based impact.</p>
<p>This seems to boil down to differences in opinion, mostly well argued.<br>
One side feels colleges mislead and discriminate. Another feels they have the right to build the student body they wish and fund it accordingly. </p>
<p>Of course, it would be nice if FA policies were transparent and consistent. And, of course, it is possible to break through some of the opacity through research and careful interpretation. I’m afraid parents and students make the college situation too emotional. “But, my child lovvves School X. It’s his dream school. He’ll be so disappointed.” And the like. For many, that’s all they focus on.</p>
<p>Higher ed is not an entitlement. In this country, good medical care isn’t even an agreed-upon entitlement. You want your kid to be happy, but a successful life does not hinge on going to Dream College. College is a transition to young adulthood. Yes, some kids benefit deeply from the higher academic exposure and challenges. But, face it, it’s also a time of social experimentation (let’s just call it that) away from parental influence and oversight. </p>
<p>Except for kids at one extreme of the Bell curve, most do not graduate with high GPAs. Most do not go on to grand internships, medical/law school, Silicon Valley jobs, etc. They do not go on to find a cure for a dread disease, argue cases before the Supreme Court, or reinvent the wheel. Most become ordinary young adults with ordinary jobs whose successes and failures in life mirror our own. </p>
<p>Those who take advantage of research opps, challenging summer jobs, networking, etc, may find themselves with an advantage in post-grad job-hunting. But, the average boss knows the names of the top schools, the names of schools with hot sports teams- and does not know the difference between a Lafayette, Lewis & Clark, Chapman, St. Olaf, etc. </p>
<p>The formula for future success is not go to Dream College, hock the house and the retirement to afford it. It’s more about the quality of the effort put into the college years. Where there is a difference is: in the STEM fields, where School X may offer superior lab, academic and field opps. In the public policy arena or business, where profs have significant involvement in analysis and the opp to work on high impact projects is available and encouraged. Or, similar fields where the activity and connections of the profs matters. For OP’s Euro history major daughter, if she intends to go on to a PhD, what will matter most is where she goes to grad school, not undergrad. </p>
<p>No one has mentioned that the reason Santa Cruz ends up costing the family less than U Chicago is that prices start lower and, as a state university, it’s mandate is to support in-state kids. Had my child gone there, I doubt she would have seen the lower bottom line costs.</p>
<p>OP, if you want to know what Euro is like at SJSU or anywhere, check the course catlogues to see the depth and breadth of classes offered. Check faculty bios to see where these folks studied and how active they are in their own research.</p>
<p>“It only takes one additional step of online research to tie that to a de facto race based impact.”</p>
<p>I think we generally accept that there is discrimination against whites and ORMs at private schools, to the extent that race and ethnicity are “considered” (re CDS) in the admissions process, and therefore de facto in the FA process. But it is significant? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I have no data.</p>
<p>“I didn’t say that “need” must be determined by the FAFSA – I said that it must be determined by a transparent, consistent process. It should not be the unilateral, secret “policies” of each college’s financial aid office.”</p>
<p>Transparency - - sure. But I don’t see why each indiv school can’t employ it’s indiv institutional formula. Isn’t it enough to know that school X caps home equity at $350k and school Y caps at $250K? Or that school A applies the student’s savings equally over 4 years, while school B applies 40% for the first year and 20% for each successive year?</p>
<p>A friend whose D was admitted to two of the Ivies asked about the difference in the finaid awards and was given precisely that type of info - - the finaid offices weren’t reluctant to disclose how they came up with the EFC.</p>
Not everyone has the same tolerance for risk–financial or emotional–and should not be judged for their varying levels.
If your top choice fails to come through with a “decent” package, then I presume that the package was unaffordable–so, reject it and apply RD to other schools in the same tier. If it turns out that the ED package was actually your best, you haven’t lost anything because it was unaffordable, and that fact doesn’t change.
ED is not for folks who want to compare financial aid packages, for whatever reason–financial, emotional, risk-averse, on a whim. It CAN be for folks who are willing to accept the worst possible FA package that they can still afford under fiscally sound practices.</p>
<p>
Could you be more specific about the discrimination that you are naming? I don’t understand your reference to “a distinct group of students.”</p>
<p>Although this document is not linked to on the FA webpages, that I’m aware of, it is still semi-public by virtue of being publicly posted on the internet and presumably distributed to students at the time of writing. I would also hope that Swarthmore’s FA office would gladly discuss their formula in this type of detail, if asked.</p>
<p>Reed may not be typical in posting the info, but as indicated in post #216, when my friend asked, each of the two schools explained how it determined need. Of course, determining need or EFC does not necessarily let a family determine the grant/loan composition prior to receiving the actual award.</p>
<p>Private college financial aid policies favor single-income, 2 parent households – among middle class families, those are the most likely to qualify for financial aid – and they don’t expect or demand that the stay at home parent get a job or demonstrate why they are not employed. But single parent, one-income households are expected to come up with an income-based contribution from noncustodial parents, which typically is a total fiction, given the fact that the laws in most states release parents from responsibility of paying child support after the kid turns 18. So for the most part, the schools shut those families out of the financial aid system.</p>