Butler was an example where we everyone we know received roughly the same merit aid (between $18K and $20K per year), despite having significantly different academic achievements. There were no “top awards” as far as we could determine. These kids were all applying for dance, but the academic admissions and merit aid offers were made before the auditions happened (Butler also irritated us by continuing to send lots of mail and emails encouraging D18 to attend even after they rejected her in the audition). So they were very clearly trying to put the $65K per year college on “special offer” for $45K per year and hoping that would be considered a bargain (or at least competitively priced with IU for OOS students).
Because I am in the trenches dealing with this issue daily, I won’t say much. However, I will say that the college consumer is increasingly expecting a scholarship. I know this for a fact, because I work in the business. Colleges are reacting to the expectations of the market, and the market is changing. I am amazed at the changes in just 10 years. I won’t share my thoughts about why this is so, but trust me, it is so.
I do have some reservations about merit aid at schools that don’t meet full need. Especially public institutions that don’t meet full need for in-state students, which is most of them… We can debate whether the privates have the same kind of societal obligation—I would argue they should because we give them extremely generous tax advantages in the belief that they’re serving the public good, but others may differ on that point. In either case, the effect is the same. Higher education can be an important engine of upward social mobility—and I was always taught that’s central to “the American dream.” But merit without meeting full need rewards a lot of students with little or no need at the expense of those with the greatest need, who may be shut out of higher education completely.
I understand the argument that merit aid allows colleges to get some higher-stats students that they otherwise couldn’t get. But there may be some equally meritorious low EFC (high need) students who can’t afford to attend even with a Pell grant plus the merit award. In that case, the school’s FA program will operate to pull in high merit/more affluent kids while effectively screening out high merit/low income kids. And this may be part of what some of the privates are aiming for. If they don’t have enough money to meet full need for all—a policy which would only tend to attract more low-income students, increasing the demand for financial aid— they figure they’re better off gearing their merit awards to a level where they’ll get a lot of high stats/affluent kids who, while not full-pay, are able to pay a larger fractional share of the nominal tuition bill than those they would attract with a policy that was more generous at the bottom of the income scale. In short, “getting the students they want” is about more than getting high stats kids. It’s about getting high stats/high pay students who think they’re getting a bargain.
@bclintonk I agree with some of your points. Public institutions should meet full need for every student. Period. No merit aid if they can’t accomplish that goal. As far as I’m concerned, the mission of a public university is to provide an affordable mechanism for every single college ready student to access higher education. Its not to be prestigious or decorative. Some states are doing far better than others. I think NY is on the right track. However, most of them are failing miserably.
The problem I have with the private universities taking that position is that it would price out an enormous number of middle class families. For many, the EFC is simply not affordable. The cost of tuition is just too high. Until mid level privates can calculate need based aid the way Harvard doesv, I have to reluctantly support the current system.
@gallentjill: Most states? The average annual in-state tuition at a public is about $10K these days. Enough to be covered by the Pell Grant ($6K) and Federal loans ($5.5-7.5K). Granted, not enough for R&B, but even the free European unis don’t subsidize R&B.
Also, you can collect that every year but go to a CC for the first 2 years then transfer to get a degree, funding the difference with the money you saved the first 2 years. Average R&B at a public is about $11K a year.
@Twoin18, I have noticed that there are some schools where getting some merit money is very easy (so the vast majority of students get a discount) but getting large merit money (full-tuition or around that) is very difficult.
I suppose their thinking is that that amount charged ($40K or so per student) is what they need to make their finances work and pulls in high enough quality students for them so to give out larger scholarships, they’d need full-payers (who would be near the bottom of the applicant pool) to subsidize.
@PurpleTitan You’re right about that. At the risk of restarting a different contentious thread, my issue is that there are too many kids who are not within driving distance of a four year institution which will admit them.
@gallentjill, right, so my major beef is that not all states have something like CA’s CC and guaranteed transfer system set up. It’s not too feasible to start a bunch of 4 year schools everywhere, but most folks are close enough to a CC.
@PurpleTitan I agree! NY has it. It would help a great deal if other states did as well. There could also be a system where students who do not live within commuting distance could get extra help for room and board. Maybe some CC’s could grant certain 4 year degrees. In any case, the system needs a fix.
I know it is not popular to remind people but there are kids in the “hole” of financial aid who could not afford to attend certain schools without the merit aid offered.
My daughter is a high stats kid. She got into a presitgious LAC that offers no merit - and found us to have zero “need”. We cannot afford to send her to that school.
She also got into a number of very good LACs that offer significant merit aid - she will go to one of those.
I get that we want all kids to be able to afford college, but “need” as determined by a school is not always 100% accurate as to what parents can actually afford to pay (for a variety of reasons).
Why should these kids not get merit aid as recognition of their hard work?
Because the artificial lowered cost is not universal in my opinion. I prefer the transparency of colleges who discount for stated and described income/asset levels or publish discounts based on gpa & test scores. I think final cost transparency by privates would go along way toward fixing the glut of applications since cost is a huge component of choice. Actual donor directed or departmental merit based scholarships should need to be applied for or at minimum the consideration should be a request portion of the application.
IMHO, public school tuition should be set at a level commensurate with the ability of students in that region to put themselves through college, perhaps with a very minimum amount of loans. This used to be the case at most public institutions, but really should be the case whether we are talking about regional State U or the U of Michigan—Ann Arbor. Unfortunately that would require (1) that state legislatures fully fund higher education, meaning that the public needs to quit whining about the cost of education and actually vote for people who will support higher education, and (2) that colleges quit spending so much money on state of the art gyms, fancier apartments, and a phalanx of administrative staff (my wife worked in admissions at a state U flagship 20 years ago and they had 5 people doing the work that now SEEMS to require 11). Neither of those seem likely to happen.
Need-based aid is more or less formulaic, even though every college tweaks its own formula. Merit-based aid is really a form of “discount”, for lack of a better word. The amount of “discount” is a function of the desirability of an applicant to the college. A college would only offer this “discount” in order to compete for a desirable applicant who it thinks may have other comparable, and perhaps better, options.
@CValle I agree that the availability of merit aid makes many more colleges affordable to middle class families. We have benefited from it and I would hate to see it disappear. In fact, I stated as much just a few posts up.
But I dislike the donut hole analogy. It suggests that poor families have easier access to higher education. This is simply not true. Only a very small number of colleges meet full need and of those even fewer have need blind admissions. These are generally the most selective colleges in the country. Only a tiny fraction of poor kids will qualify for one of these coveted spots. Its so few as to not really make a dent for the thousands of college age kids with substantial need. For the vast majority of them, the issue is affording college at all - anywhere.
Booboobear Michigan Tech (at $29,000) is a few thousand more than UofM which is a few thousand more than MSU. All 3 are over $25,000 a year COA for full pay Michigan residents. Yes the regionals are less and closer to $20,000–even Northern that used to be the best value is now at $23,000…but it is a very expensive state for higher ed and I don’t see that changing in my lifetime.
No matter how you cut the cake if you are full pay you will most likely need a minimum $80,000 to $100,000 access to cash after fed loans to the students as parents to pay for college even if you are instate. I think that is the reality for the vast majority who aren’t posting to CC and something that kids probably don’t understand. Multiply that number by x kids and you have parent reality.
UChicago was a decent deal for them. My son attended full-pay. Did not apply for finaid. Was given $750 [sic] National Merit Scholarship per year – awarded after he had accepted.
We had decided that we could get through for $125K-130K in total costs for each kid for the 4 years (1 year overlap in college). We thought that being self-funded would increase the chances that they would be admitted. This was about 20 years ago. We had saved enough over the years, including cash (U.S. Savings Bonds) from my parents, so that we could cover the balance of costs from current income flow. The amount of the NMS was a token by the University.
By the time both kids had graduated, our savings were totally wiped out and we still had ten years to liquidate our 30-year mortgage, but we did have a 401k and SS. Both kids graduated in 4 years and got their first jobs right out of college – jobs that they stayed in for 2-3 years that paid their rent and general subsistence in big cities (Chicago and NYC). There were some later unplanned-for expenses, when #2 decided to earn an MBA and MS after working for several years as an artist-designer. The federal direct loans were imposing and ridiculously expensive (ca. 7.5% interest rate); we helped with that.
Finally we were financially “free.” A real cost was that we had to defer retirement; now we’re retired. It was worth it.
Similar here. We were hurt most by the real estate freefall because a large chunk of our assets were in real estate so we are working more years than anticipated and I was unemployed for over a year after my husband retired due to the automotive implosion but very, very grateful we had retirement planned prior to #1 heading off and the mortgage on out home paid off. We are in the last year of ten years of college payments. Everyone without trust funds or six figure income gets blindsided. I still am not a fan of discounting and wish there would be a setback on the costs that simply aren’t good business and frankly price gouging of the worse kind by private institutions.
But secretly I raise my eyeballs at people I know who did not save and lived very nice lifestyles and now want a bailout for there college age kids. Not many of my close friends but a few less close. I also have friends supporting parents who lived the high life and ran out of money and I never want to be that parent. I count my blessings that #1 and #2, smart bright kids like thousands of others, were self supporting at graduation from colleges that aren’t hugely championed here. #3 has a job lined up post graduation so we have indeed been blessed. And never once did they complained they “worked so hard” they deserved more than we could provide. Yes, that is a quiet brag. Do I think their lives were harmed by not going to Dartmouth (#1) or Colby (#2) their favorite colleges. I think not. Both those schools were more than the colleges thought we could really afford. I don’t drive a Maserati either even though I really like how they look and people would be really really impressed.
@momofthreeboys , MI publics are definitely expensive. My S attended a smaller school that - even with a guaranteed academic merit scholarship - was more expensive than what it cost to send my daughter to an elite school in the same year. S transferred to a U that was close to home after his first year. The published average tuition for that school may seem somewhat reasonable, but it is based on 12 credits/semester … the cost per credit hour was steep, so with a credit load that allowed him to graduate in 8 semesters, it was probably $16,000/year. That does not allow the poorest to cover tuition with federal aid, it does not allow the middle to cover tuition with federal aid, and it is not exactly peanuts for the upper middle. For those who do not live near enough to commute, the cost just goes up from there - and in Michigan, there are many people who don’t live near a university (or even a CC).
@momofthreeboys I was referring to the way it was at most southern state universities in the 1970s (based on personal experience) until an escalation began in the 1980s, and to research such as the below (there are many studies like this out there, this is just one that came up quickly on google) showing the decrease in affordability over time. I knew many people slightly older than me who worked their way through college with summer and parttime work without borrowing, and that is no longer possible without additional grants and loans.
Here’s the COA for an in-state student at some prominent Midwestern flagships:
Illinois: $31,006 to $36,010 (depending on major, with tuition ranging from $15,998 to $21,002)
Michigan $29,524 (tuition $14,826)
Michigan State $29,450 (tuition $15,346)
Minnesota $27,469 (tuition $14,417)
Ohio State $26,947 (tuition $10,591)
Wisconsin $25,699 (tuition $10,533)
Indiana $24,428 (tuition $10,534)
So a Pell grant plus Federal loans will cover less than half of COA at these schools. Among these schools the University of Michigan is the only one that meets full need for in-state students, yet they all pour substantial amounts into merit awards. Ohio State, for example, gives out about $75 million in merit awards annually yet meets only 73% of need on average. You’re not going to convince me that a zero EFC kid is going to make it at Ohio State on a Pell grant and Federal loans.