<p>I know that Ivy league schools are need blind, no merit-aid. If your income is under 65-75K, you go for free and you pay up to 10% for income up to 150K or so.</p>
<p>It means with parents' income of $150K, the family's contribution is about $15K+-. The other 40K+ comes from the school. Where else do you get that deal ?</p>
<p>A rose by another other name ?</p>
<p>Fire…what you are describing is only available at the most generous Ivy schools (not all). There are other schools with similarly generous aid…Stanford is one.</p>
<p>These VERY generous schools have acceptance rates UNDER 10%. You have to be accepted first, and there is no guarantee of that.</p>
<p>To answer your thread title, no. Ivies don’t give merit aid. Their aid is based on need. They don’t need to use merit aid to attract high performing applicants because they already get them.</p>
<p>Most Ivy’s are Division III schools and are not allowed to give merit aid. One can argue that all kids at the top Ivy schools should get merit aid so …</p>
<p>Being in Division III does not preclude awarding merit aid. It does mean athletic scholarships are not allowed.</p>
<p>The Ivy League’s collective decision not to award merit aid was simply a quid pro quo business decision to prevent an arms race like battle competing for the top candidates.</p>
<p>Ivy schools are Division 1.</p>
<p>Eyemgh is right in that many schools in D III give merit aid. Many schools in D I give merit aid also.</p>
<p>They base " need" on what they perceive as " need," not on what you perceive as " need." A $200,000 a year salary for a family of 4 in certain areas of the country does not make them rich or well off, but these families may not get much FA, if any. A $10,000 grant ( for example) does not make much of a dent in a $55,000 a year school. Maybe I am wrong?</p>
<p>To rephrase the the thread title: “Do Ivys give merit aid?”, which seems to be the question. The answer is: NO.</p>
<p>The FA calculations do account for family size, the number of children in college, and some other factors that influence “need” (positively or negatively). I don’t think they account for regional cost-of-living differences at all.</p>
<p>Actually, jym, sine the OP already knew the answer, and really wanted to discuss Ivy need based aid, that is where the thread is headed!</p>
<p>I try not to get sucked into the Ivy threads, but saw the glaring errors in OperaDad’s post and couldn’t help myself!</p>
<p>TK21769, there are some adjustments for COLA, by state but not by urban center. <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091312EFCFormulaGuide1314.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091312EFCFormulaGuide1314.pdf</a></p>
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The Ivy League is an athletic conference, so by definition all ivies are in the same Division I FCS athletic conference. The Ivy League athletic conference forbids member schools from giving athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>Let’s take an example:
Family income is $150K. You go to one of the Ivys, they make you pay $15K a year and give you ~$40K in financial aid for needs (not scholarship).</p>
<p>You apply to the next 100 schools, not Ivys. Chances are that you may get full-ride scholarship, you may get partial rides, you may get no merit aid at all. You may, on average, have to pay out of pocket more than $15K a year.</p>
<p>The claim that Ivys do not give merit aid means very little. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The claim that the students who go to Ivys are all needy, poor students who get to go there only because they are poor while your precious sons and daughter don’t get to go there nor get the money because your family is rich is also a lot of bulls.</p>
<p>fire123 - I don’t understand your post at all. None of the Ivies give any merit aid at all based upon my research and my understanding of the term “merit aid”. English is my native tongue. Financial aid is not merit aid. Financial aid considers your families financial ability to pay the cost of college, nothing more. It happens that some of the Ivies and a few Ivy-like schools have exceptionally good financial aid and for the families of students who get in to those colleges, their cost of attendance may be lower than if they got into another private college or the state flagship. So what, it still doesn’t make it merit aid, which you receive because you achieved some meritorious mark.</p>
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<p>If your point is that money if fungible, we need to alert the news for this is truly a monumental discovery (and should entitle you and yours to merit money at all colleges in the US).</p>
<p>Fire…being “need blind” has nothing todo with financial aid. All this means is that a college does not consider your financial need when they consider your application for admissions. Being need blind is an admissions issue…MOST colleges are need blind.</p>
<p>You are probably confusing this with “guarantees to meet full need”. Schools that guarantee to meet full need do so based on THEIR calculation of your family need. This is a financial aid term.</p>
<p>There are schools that meet full need AND offer merit aid awards as well. There are schools that are need blind for admissions that give horrible financial aid. There are schools that are need blind that meet full need. Some are more generous than others.</p>
<p>BUT…the schools in the Ivy League do not offer merit aid to undergrads.</p>
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<p>The Ivy League is an NCAA Division I sports conference.</p>