^^^^ To be absolutely honest, I think that “many high achieving low income students choose other schools over Harvard” can be said for middle class high achieving students as well. If one doesn’t live in the Northeast or the West Coast, the draw to the elites is much less. Top ranked kids in the state of Indiana often choose IU or PU as their school when they could get into many of the top LACs and even some of the Tippy Tops. The dream of every kid in Ohio is to go to OSU (or UMich). When I lived in Michigan, I rarely heard anyone consider anything besides UMich, Mich St., or Mich Tech. I don’t think it is all about affordability, but where they hold the value of Ivy vs. what they know. Growing up in Indiana, I’d never heard of Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, or Penn (or NYU, CMU, Emory, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, Wash U, Rochester, Colgate, Bucknell, Lafayette, etc.). I told my mother that my son was considering Williams and she asked me “why? where is that?” Around my neighborhood, ND, Northwestern, and UMich were considered the best schools to consider if one wasn’t going to either PU or IU. Even the current highest ranking midwest school was relatively unknown to those outside of academia. Finally, outside of the Northeast, there is no crew, no lacrosse, no field hockey, no equestrian to draw the rich-kid athlete hooks.
The 80 to 90th percentile had a balanced representation of ~10% of students in the 10 percentile range. Above 90th percentile was over-represented, and below 80th percentile was under-represented. There is nothing to suggest the 80-90th percentile is less represented than any of the middle class families below them…
If you look at other selective private colleges that show more detail about the middle percentiles, all I am aware of show that as income decreases, the group gets less represented, rather than something special about the 80-90th percentile. FA calculators for “elite” privates with good FA (good FA is possible due to a larger portion of wealthy full pay families) also do not suggest that this group is in a donut hole region where things get unaffordable. I’ll use Harvard as an example because their calc is faster to use than Barnard. Income level by cost to parents is below assuming 1 in college and typical assets. The rate of cost increase does get steeper once crossing in to top ~13% income. However, this region above top 13% is over-represented at almost all highly selective private colleges I am aware of… nothing to suggest this group dips because of FA-cost sensitivity.
$65k income: $0k, cost 0% of income – ~54th percentile
$75k income: $2k, cost 3% of income – ~61st percentile
$100k income: $5k, cost 5% of income – ~73rd percentile
$120k income: $8k, cost 7% of income – ~80th percentile
$140k income: $13k, cost 9% of income – ~85th percentile
$150k income: $15k, cost 10% of income – ~87th percentile
$170k income: $25k, cost 14% of income – ~90th percentile
@Data10 – To your first point, as I said, we’d need to see full data and from across the elites to know if there’s less representation, but the Barnard data did suggest so.
Sorry – not following the the Harvard data and what it’s showing.
I was at best a lower middle class kid growing up. Dad worked construction and there were some lean years for sure. He had to travel sometimes to find work. I was a first gen kid. I was also a URM. And I grew up in Oklahoma City so I do know a bit about rural Oklahoma. My HS was quite urban and diverse. I was a high stats kid.
Kids can make it out of tough situations. Many do every year. Since I experienced it first hand I never understood why a high stats kid who’s family is dirt poor couldn’t make a go of it at a need based aid university. If you are poor enough the school will pay for everything. All you need is a bus ticket to campus. So unless you have to stick around and get a job to help support your family then you should be going to school if you can get in. And I know about sticking around helping family out because that is what my Dad had to do being the oldest of 7. He didn’t go to college when he could have.
The specific Barnard numbers from my earlier post are below. I don’t see why anyone seeing these numbers would conclude that the families in the 10-20% income range are not choosing Barnard due to FA reasons. Instead the obvious question would be why aren’t more middle and lower income families below top 10-20% attending Barnard?
Between top 10 to 20% income – 9% of students (balanced representation – expected 10%, were 9%)
Middle 60% income – 29% of students (2x under-representation – expected 60%, were 29%)
Bottom 20% income – 6.6% of students (3-4x under-representation – expected 20%, were 6.6%)
Harvard and many similar “elite” private colleges are affordable for typical middle class families after FA. When crossing to the discussed top 20% threshold, cost was $8k/year or ~7% of income. This is less that typical in state public options, in most states. There is nothing to suggest that the college becomes unaffordable for typical middle class families after reaching this threshold, although I realize many families have unique financial circumstances that are not “typical.”
@gpo613 And the amount of qualified candidates is essentially due to poverty and birth lottery. Low income kids as a group don’t have the advantages middle and higher income kids have from pre-natal care on. They get lower level vocab in the house, fewer books, whatever district they are in for schools, no outside paid tutoring, often have to work to help support the family, and often have a family that has no clue how the college thing even works. They feel they don’t belong at elite schools even when some buck the trend and do well in school in spite of the difficulties. Then, even if tuition et al are free, they still need transportation, daily basic needs (like toiletries) and similar.
But say they get that 30+ on the ACT anyway. They still have the competition to get accepted wherever they apply. IME, there’s a far higher acceptance rate for those who need LESS financial aid than those who need more. Some do indeed win the lottery, but there are far more who don’t. It would be interesting to see stats on that. I’m just going from what I’ve seen.
“Since I experienced it first hand I never understood why a high stats kid who’s family is dirt poor couldn’t make a go of it at a need based aid university. If you are poor enough the school will pay for everything.”
The need-based FA system is relatively recent (what, 10 years or so?), and many students and families from poor economic backgrounds still aren’t aware of it. How many times have you seen the comments right here on CC that, “oh, my family’s income is too low to afford those private colleges”?
Kids make it out of tough situations all the time, although staying home to help family seems MUCH more prevalent these days (similar to our parents generation) than it was in ours. I didn’t know a single kid from my HS who stayed close to home because of a parent or sibling’s illness (many stayed close to home and commuted, and perhaps that was the reason, although there were usually other things going on as well). Now I know lots. Many more kids growing up in single parent homes for example- so being dirt poor AND being the “co parent” to younger children if the single parent is working long hours means that getting on that bus and going halfway across the country isn’t as easy as it would be in a two parent household.
I won’t bore you with my family history. But I try not to patronize the HS kids I meet with stories about bootstrapping and walking all the way to Providence, RI in the snow, uphill. I’m glad you have achieved what you have achieved- truly a testament to you. But it’s also nice sometimes to recognize that not every disadvantaged kid is cut from the same cloth. Sometimes a high performing kid stays home and goes to community college-- because that’s going to be the best way to lift the family out of poverty. An AA in ultrasound or pharmacy tech is the first step on the ladder. Sometimes another kid ends up at an elite university. But having interviewed for my alma mater for many years (in a part of the country where I met many first gen/low income HS kids) it’s not so simple to say “Get on the bus and we’ll pay for everything”.
Who is paying the electric bill or for dad’s dialysis co-pay once that 18 year old gets on the bus? That kid has been working a paying job since he was 12 years old, and the family relies on that kid. A kid very much like your dad.
Patronizing low income kids isn’t a great way to help. But kudos to you!
Stanford has over 17% first generation students. More than I thought.
Every time I read one of these threads about who pays full price, I see the discussion revolving around income. Remember that assets are an important part as well. We have been extremely frugal and our income is in the six figures but not outrageous. Our EFC is a very big number. More than putting two kids through full-price private universities for one year. It’s high because of our savings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read - go ahead, file CSS, people with your income get aid at the highest rank privates. Not always true.
A family in our situation can choose to spend that money on college, go the in-state route, or look for merit. No one is forcing us to send our kids to expensive elite schools. That being said, those are most likely the best match for our S19 and we are willing to pay for a very good fit. We’ll see how it shakes out in the spring. He may go to a school that gives him merit…or he may choose a school that will cost us more.
My point is to not get your hopes up for aid at elite schools if your income is high but not super high. It’s not all about income.
Need-based FA is definitely not 10 years old. I graduated high school over 25 years ago and had full need offers from MIT, Columbia, Cornell, USC, and Harvey Mudd. I was actually amazed at the time that they were all within a few hundred dollars of each other, other than USC which also included merit.
Edited to add those offers also brought the full cost of attendance below UCB and UCLA which were instate and also included some help.
You need to get admitted first. The vast majority of applicants to elite colleges, whether from rich or poor families, get rejected.
Also, those from poor families but have uncooperative divorced parents will not get financial aid at most of the elite colleges, since they expect both parents to cooperate with financial aid forms and paying, even if divorced (and divorced parents are less likely to have the money even if they are cooperative, due to the damage that divorce does to the ex-spouses’ personal finances). About half of children will see parental divorce, so this is not a trivial situation.
And don’t forget that the A- or B+ student who comes from middle or upper-middle class has options. CC to the local public directional for example. The kid whose parents are poor looks at that cost in most states and it’s completely out of reach. I’m amazed at how many upper middle class families complain about how “good” poor kids have it. Maybe those few who manage to excel, get top grades, stand out, given all of their disadvantages (top among them-- going to a severely resource-constrained school in all likelihood) are “very advantaged.” But how about all those smart kids who never have a chance?
For comparison, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018009.pdf says that for 2002 HS sophomores (presumably mainly 2004 HS graduates) who subsequently enrolled in college, their generation status is:
24% first generation, defined as neither parent attended college
34% at least one parent attended college, but did not earn a bachelor’s degree
42% at least one parent earned a bachelor’s degree
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/1922045-definition-of-first-gen.html suggests that Stanford uses a broader definition of “first generation” that includes the first category and at least a subset of the second category (those who attended two year colleges but not four year colleges).
Overall, 34% of families are headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree, according to https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/april/income-wealth-gaps-college-grads-nongrads , so first generation (in the broader sense including the first two categories listed above) students are somewhat underrepresented in college in general.
Don’t forget that a lot of the boarding school and independent school kids are from poor families and many are URMs. Schools like HYP, MIT, etc. know that if they want to enroll poor kids who can succeed, programs like Prep For Prep, ABC ( A Better Chance) and school-specific scholarship programs are a good place to find them. Many kids who went to Nowheresville High School are going to have a hard time adjusting to life at an elite college. Kids from poor backgrounds who went to schools like Deerfield Academy, Andover, Collegiate, etc. and succeeded there are less likely to have adjustment problems. They’ve developed their own coping mechanisms.
At some schools, a substantial percentage of transfer students are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Again, these kids have shown they can do college level work. There’s a college that is for military stationed abroad. Lots of active duty people earn associate’s degrees at them. Those who do best have excellent chances of getting into a top college if they apply.
Funny you mention those @BrianBoiler - I know several field hockey and lacrosse players from my kid’s HS (in Ohio) who took athletic scholarships to play both sports, two just to IU!
LAX and FH aren’t as common in the midwest as soccer and vball and bball, but spreading fast.
@OHMomof2 I know both were spreading into the midwest, Purdue actually had a lacrosse club when I was there 30 years ago, but I had not seen it at the high school level yet. Sorry about the IU thing 
@BrianBoiler We have all of those sports in suburban Chicago. Equestrian sports not at school but nearby. Our school sends a few lacrosse players to Ivies every year. And our next door neighbors’ kids both went to Ivies for crew. Not just an east coast thing anymore!
@blossom wrote about the bottom quintile families:
Absolutely! This is my world - I teach math at a regional public encompassing both urban and working class neighborhoods. I bend rules trying to get some of my students across the finish line. Many are quite capable of the academic work - but their life gets in the way. Just had a student who was doing well disappear all of a sudden. After reaching out to her, she said she and her family were being evicted , and she is temporarily staying with a friend. She needed to stay in school to keep her financial aid. I’m letting her make up work and adjust the schedule, as are her other professors.
And then there are the more common issues for absenteeism: picking up sibling / taking grandma to the doctor/ babysitting a sibling’s child etc. etc. The college going kids are viewed as having a flexible schedule and they get dumped on with many family responsibilities. Many times, this is the kid who is the smarter and more responsible one - so yeah - more work gets dumped on them.
At any rate, the elite schools all put together can only take a tiny fraction of the students in bottom quintile. The bulk of the heavy lifting is done by the community colleges and regional public 4-year schools.
My kid dual enrolls at a CC where 62% qualify for Pell, 64% are first gen, 63% are minority. Urban setting. Magic happens there every single day. And you might not know that based on their stats. The professor and class quality has far exceeded expectations as well. Some of the teachers are teaching across town at 50K+ private schools. My kid has received an education there well beyond the topics taught in class rooms.
Elite schools allow a few low income students in so they can pat themselves on the back and advertise about SE diversity. Our community has free 2 years of tuition for students at this CC for incomes below 75K I believe. Dual enrolling as a qualified high schooler is also free. It serves 11K+ students annually.