<p>Sorry to start a new thread. But I think this will be an issue all parents whose kids are seeking financial aid. </p>
<p>My daughter emailed me a web link stating that for H if parents income fall under $60,000 the student receive full aid. For income between $60,000 and $75,000, the cost of attending is significantly reduced. In this case this complicates our financial aid thinking and her applying to school as our gross is barely above $63,000.</p>
<p>The confusion starts that Y and P are offering full aid below $45,000 and in that case our gross income is well above $18000 for their calculator. This complicates thing but I need to recalculate it.</p>
<p>I was wondering in this case would Princeton or Yale or other good colleges would offer similar financial aid incentives that match H. I think this will be an issue all parents whose kids are seeking financial aid. I am sure it does not affect only our family. This way all parents seeking financial aid would be tempted to apply H only. I hope Y and P make similar offer. </p>
<p>If not so, we have to take a chance and apply H and wait and see what happens as starting this year there will be tremendous financial aid package difference between H and rest of the schools? This is a huge financial aid gap in our case and it would make a significant difference on our budget as for our family $5000 means a big thing as we have other kids who would be seeking college education.</p>
<p>I am sure many parents in our shoes would have to deal with this potential $15,000 in aid pacakges. The only question remains is it real or all good colleges would adjust accordingly.</p>
<p>I strongly suspect that HYPS will make quite similar offers. An additional factor is that while P is ED and thus the student is committed to attend if accepted HYS are SCEA (or REA). This means that if accepted EA, a student may still apply elsewhere and compare offers. Students then can try to negotiate for a better financial package. While need-blind colleges supposedly do not engage in negotiations, in fact, they are known to try to match peer colleges's packages. The important word here is "peer." In other words, Yale would try to match an offer from HPS (and other colleges it considers its peers--I am giving examples, not a comprehensive list), but not from "Podunk U."</p>
<p>I could be wrong in my analysis. Without written policy change kids, looking for financial aid, may be taking a chance by ignoring H. Every single financial aid kid has to apply to H because it is a huge difference. No family could afford to ignore potential $15,000 income level difference. Thus, most of kids like mine would apply to H in large droves even after early round.
I do not think many parents seeking aid could afford to apply P in ED round who likes that school.</p>
<p>What my fear is that $5,000 is a huge difference in financial aid to folks like us. Every penny counts for kids seeking aid. Actually it counts for people not even seeking aid. It will be very tough scene at already super competitive H. Harvard would have more qualified applicant to choose then they have ever seen. What a great PR strategy and a master stroke on their part.</p>
<p>I think waht parents must be careful about is what exactly consititues income. While some may look at the new initiatives and say 'Well, I make under $60k" you must also take into conderation that most of these schools with low income initiatives does not soley look at a parent's income when determining FA (they ask for both the FAFSA & the CSS profile). While a family may meet the "income" guidelines, tey could have assets/ equity that would knock them out of the box for "reduced EFC and loans".</p>
<p>Virginia Hazen, Director of Financial Aid at Dartmouth, warns against the dangers of oversimplifying the financial aid equation.</p>
<p>"To simply say that there will be no contribution if the income is below a certain figure departs from need-based aid in some instances," Hazen said. She cited a hypothetical example of a student with a family income of $30,000, but $2 million in assets.</p>
<p>"If you based the determination strictly on income as some institutions are proposing, the student [with $2 million in assets] would get significant aid," Hazen said. Penn, like Dartmouth, says that it examines each student's financial aid situation beyond family earnings.</p>
<p>You may be right but there may be few people in real life " family with a income of $30,000, but $2 million in assets." </p>
<p>Let us come to relaity how many working people can have that kind of asset. Maybe 100 or 1000 not many. I am talking about rest of the people like us who does not belong to the million dollar asset category.</p>
<p>Maybe her example was extreme but it does not negate the very true other side of the coin is that there are people who believe that it is not how much money you have but what you do with the money. </p>
<p>I know plenty of people who make a small amount of money and are savers (and live with just the basics) thereby chalking up a lot of money in the bank (savings/investments). </p>
<p>It is also not hard for someone for example who lives in CA, NYC, Long Island, Westchester County, MA or anywhere else with a high housing market to have purchased a home when the cost of real estate was reasonable (sounds like an oxymoron) held on to that same house for a long time and now find them selves "house rich" because your house could have appreciated just that much going through the college process, even though they do not make a lot of $$. </p>
<p>I have friends who have lived in tribeca for over 20 years when you would not wanted to be caught dead in the neighborhood, purchased lofts for little or nothing that are now worth a couple of million.</p>
<p>YOur best action is to use the Princeton calculator and see how much Princeton would give you in financial aid before dismissing Princeton or Yale or any other school because of Harvard's publicized financial aid initiative. I am not trying to discourage you or anyone from applying to Harvard, but I just want to be fair to other schools. Once you see whether there is any real difference, you can focus on other aspects of the college search. Princeton and Harvard are very similar in certain ways and quite dissimilar in others. Intead of seeking answers to all your questions on CC, I suggest you look up a few college websites.</p>
<p>not only real estate, but savings invested wisely can really add up.
My grandparents, who had lived well but frugally, and had spent their lives working in a factory and as a clerk, left my mother well over a million dollars and this was about 15 years ago, when 1.5million was thought as something!
( of course my mother has all but gone through it- having quit her job and traveled extensively- but just goes to show, people have different attitudes about money & skill in managing it)</p>
<p>And, of course, your kid actually has to be accepted to H to benefit from this financial aid policy.... :) Best that she/he apply to schools that he/she is interested in, then examine financial aid offers when they are offered. A bird in the hand....</p>
<p>The percentage of students who will be accepted into H, Y, or P in the income category mentioned is extraordinarily small, smaller (and in some cases much, much smaller) than several dozen other places where an extraordinarily fine education can be obtained. I would not be surprised to find out that the number of non-athlete, non-URM students with family incomes of $63k acccepted at all three can be counted on two hands, likely with some fingers missing.</p>
<p>"The confusion starts that Y and P are offering full aid below $45,000"</p>
<p>I've always wondered how little a family has to contribute at H and P under the full financial aid programs. I'd like to find out how much a family with a ZERO EFC for both FAFSA and CSS would still need to come up. Other schools such as MIT and Brown consider that 100% financial aid does not mean a 0% contribution, as summer expected earnings are not waived. In the case of Brown, they won't waive the summer expected earnings, even if the student obtains outside scholarships that are meant to eliminate such contributions. </p>
<p>It would be wonderful to have real life confirmation of my strong hunch that the difference between zero contribution and what families need to pay ranges in the thousands of dollars. </p>
<p>PS I realize that this might sound cynical -or greedy- to families who receive little or no financal aid. However, in many cases, families with zero EFC simply do not have the resources, and as Mini wrote many times, actually count on the earnings of the student to make ends meet. In a perfect world, that should never exist, but it does.</p>
<p>It is hardly worth focusing on the number of students in the $45k-$65k range who are accepted into H, Y, or P. My educated guess is that the total numbers are in the few hundred. The majority of students who receive financial aid at each of these school are in the $90-$160k range in income. The Pell Grantees are all below $45k. If you assume (just for sake of argument, but this is pretty close to the truth at each of the schools, with some minor variations), 50% receive no aid, 25% receive aid within the $90k-$160k category, 10% are Pell Grantees (below $45k), it leaves just 15% in the $45k-$90k category, with the vast majority likely in the upper end of that spectrum. In other words, maybe 5% of entering students - which would mean perhaps 75 of them at H., and even fewer at Y and P. It's difficult to get very excited about them. </p>
<p>If admissions plus aid is what you are looking for, your d. should be looking elsewhere. (might get as good or better education too, but that's another subject.) If she's lucky enough to get into one of them, you might then find out that the PR isn't all it's cracked up to be, but, honestly, it's not likely you are going to find out, so don't let it worry you.</p>
<p>newparent,
Your daughter sounds like a fabulous student (from your previous posts) but I'm a little concerned that all your questions that I can see only pertain to Harvard, Yale, Princeton. While she may very well be in the running at one or more of these schools I still would suggest that you carefully research excellent safety choices for her too. She is much more likely to end up somewhere else than HYP - so that end of things needs a lot of attention too. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>I also often wonder what it feels like to be among the poorest of kids on these campuses. I suppose it depends on the kid...</p>
<p>Please correct me if I am wrong (I'm sure you will!) but I thought that when Harvard eliminated the family contribution for those with incomes below $45k, it was done pretty much by decree by then president Larry Summers. It was then be up to the financial aid people to implement the new policy in a fair an equitable fashion, dealing with things like the family with $45k in annual income which is a result of tax free interest on $1mm of 4.5% municipal bonds. They later upped the ante to $65k. I do see it as a marketing and pr effort. They want to encourage applications from highly qualified low income students.</p>
<p>I suspect there are low cost areas of the country where a 2 person family (single parent, one child) could live quite comfortably on $65k/year with something left over to pay for college.</p>
<p>I think you are right about different sources of income and different standards of living. But I am also assuming that applicants for finaid would have to fill out a form that would spell out the source of income. For example, it is doubtful that a family that has investments of 1mm and return on this investment of $45k would not have other sources of income, such as salary.<br>
For the second scenario, I would assume that savings have to be listed (that gets us into a different discussion--the value of saving for college vs. spending freely then applying for finaid).</p>
<p>I also agree with Mini that collectively, the various finaid packages offered by HYPS do not make much of a difference in the overall finaid picture. But for individual applicants their availability is important, just as whether the packages are made up primarily of grants or of loans.</p>
<p>"And I wonder what kind of "diversity" factor enters into that 5%."</p>
<p>I fully expect that when you factor out the athletes and URMs from the $45-$65k acceptees, there is pretty close to no one left. Which is interesting, because the $45k-$65k is the "middle class" quintile (actually, slightly above). If you turn out to be one of those "no ones", you might actually find out if the hype is true. But it sure will be a small sample!</p>
<p>Not that I think it matters particularly. HYP's loss is Vanderbilt's (etc.) gain.</p>