<p>I just posted this in another thread but decided to bring it out into its own thread:</p>
<p>I've been following the discussion on merit aid and from our experience, I pretty much agree with fammom's perception (back in the squee thread). </p>
<p>Is there anyone out there who can report on financial aid at the private art schools? We do not have a very high EFC. In fact it is pretty accurate in my view. I would be thrilled if our costs matched it. (I know, I'm a dreamer) CCA said in their merit offer letter that we would hear about FA by April 1st. I have the impression that RISD and Pratt do give financial aid when there is need. What about other schools. </p>
<p>waiting along with everyone but will share in april after it all comes out (hopefully well). I did get some good advice about negotiating with schools (not necessarily art schools so I may find that it doesn’t apply) from parents who had been through this a few years ago. The advice/messages confirmed my earlier view. Many schools (not just art schools) make small or moderate offers of aid. There are some big scholarships at most schools but they go to just a select few usually through some competition or some pretty high prerequisites (national merit finalist, etc). Then, they scatter moderate merit aid to the remaining attractive students to see which ones are really seriously interested. SOme students will come back and negotiate an show letters from other schools. The school will sometimes increase the merit offer if student seems to genuinely have a very good offer from a similar school. Many students just take what they are first offered which may be sufficient or the best offer they have. Thus, from the school’s point of view they can offer more aid to more students with more likelihood of getting some of them than if they blow all merit aid on a couple of star applicants. The PMs I have received indicate that this seems to hold true for some private LACs and small universities with who want to compete with slightly more prestigious schools. So SAIC may offer more if you have a more generous offer from MICA or the reverse. At the same time, a good offer from VCU really doesn’t make any difference to MICA or SAIC because they aren’t really competing with state schools because the whole cost/tuition is so radically different anyway. </p>
<p>I stress the MAY because who knows? However, they aren’t going to snatch away the original offer of merit aid just because a parent points out they have a better offer from another school…they just may say “no”…seems fair to me.</p>
<p>wow! look at how taxguy go (went?)
I guess that’s why his D turned down CMU.
Where is he these days anyway? Finally retired?
drae
I think valter kid said he got 17K FA from SAIC already, it should come soon.</p>
<p>Hey- fam, I think that your logic holds true for merit aid, but I think that drae27 is kind of trying to get the same sort of analysis for need based aid. Based on all the MICA stuff I read when the scholarship applications came out, I saw that there were some combined need/merit based scholarships. Nothing more to report, all my anecdotal data is merit stories from MICA- a couple of which appear to be relatively generous, $60K, $88K. (strong painters, good grades)</p>
<p>Good luck, Drae, the waiting is bringing out the hamster wheel in my brain.</p>
<p>Did a quick (and I mean QUICK) view of 2008-2009 endowments, and every school I saw took a hit, tied, no doubt to the investment market. Minnesota didn’t even turn up on the list this time.</p>
<p>My daughter did not apply for FA and was surprised to receive merit scholarships with 3 of her acceptance letters… $36K/4yrs at CCA, $44K/4yrs at SAIC, and $32K/4yrs at MassArt (which was a presidential scholarship and she is an out-of-state student). She received nothing from the Northeastern/MFA Museum School program and hasn’t heard from NYU, Pratt, and RISD yet regarding acceptance or FA.</p>
<p>Does anyone have information on scholarships available to college juniors or seniors in art?
Or direct me to web sites that are useful. A google search just turned up a slew of sites but I couldn’t figure out which were of any credibility.</p>
<p>Also any parents with kids who’ve gotten through their first two years and then begin to run short, any ideas, suggestions, points to consider?</p>
<p>cash prize competition? there are always something on the back of those trade magazines. or e-newsletter I get
<a href="mailto:adnl@artdaily.org">adnl@artdaily.org</a>
if there is good fine art competition, usually show up in here.
how did you run out of money? the school cut you off? things went up too much? underestimated? any horror stories?</p>
<p>Just planning ahead. Want to be very aware of what’s out there before the time comes as it appears it is looming on the horizon.</p>
<p>But I am looking for something beyond cash prize competitions. More directed towards kids still in college and needing further assistance. Or is everything geared towards aid at admissions only hence the talking of going back to schools to try and get more merit aid?
I’m clueless about what’s out there, how this all works.</p>
<p>cross posted, wow.
I see. For all I know, once you are upper classman, you can do RA (free room) or live away cheap and share rent, win institutional merit set up specially for continuing students, get jobs in or out of campus, summer jobs, take a break to save some money, good thing is they are over 20-21, should be able to shoulder some load, if not all.
If you can not possibly pay all the way and the school did not find you good enough to give substantial merit aid when going in, the road will be tough.
Worse yet, after coming out, you are nowhere near to pay off loans either. Now it is depressing from parents’ view but you know, some kids are like, don’t care. even we’d dump them, they’d live off friends’ girlfriends’ boyfriends’ total strangers and somehow someway some kids will make it. Maybe take 10-20 years but it all worth it. (or isn’t)</p>
<p>Yabutmommm…your kid’s experience just confirms my theory about the way merit aid works! Thanks for the data. Seriously considering writing an economics paper on the merit aid strategy of elite art schools. I can already see the optimization problem – the goal is to maximize tuiton --but the school can’t just charge an infinite amount of money because if a school charges more/provides less aid than competition the yield goes down and, then, so does your tuition revenue. So, yield (students enrolling who are accepted) is inversely related to tuition, but prestige is weakly, but positively related to tuition which is also positively correlated with yield so you get contradictory forces. Then, of course, as MICA and RISD have shown in past years they feel it is worthwhile to offer seriously big merit aid to “ringers”-- presidential scholars in the arts, gold portfolio winners, national merit scholars, etc so important to make big offers to a few students with boastful stats/awards. So, it is worthwhile to offer substantial aid to a few of these ringers because that increases prestige…which increases desirability of future students willing to pay big $$ to attend said prestigious schools. If all the schools acted independently (did not collude) you should get healthy competition–average students will get aid/tuition combinations that are similar accross the institutions. Real ringers should be able to show competing offers and try to get schools to bid up the merit and financial aid offers. If, however, the schools collude and “agree” not to offer (for example) more than 10% merit aid to regular student, 25% merit aid to the good student and no more than 50% for the ringers, the art schools will be better off as a whole but the students are at a very big disadvantage because they can’t negotiate past a certain point. I am not saying that the top art schools do collude, but the fact is is that they are a very small group of institutions that offer a very similar product which presents the advantage of acting as a cartel (restrict spaces in art school and collude on price)…a bit like OPEC. This will maximize tuition for all the institutions instead of competing and lowering the tuition revenue for all. </p>
<p>There are other suppliers of art education–state art schools, second-tier art schools–but they don’t really affect the pricing decisions of the prestigious 6-8 schools. Any more anecdotal evidence will be much appreciated!</p>
<p>well that’s the way of the world isn’t it, fineartsmom! I imagine there’s a lot of scrambling to gain acclaim as it will directly influence enrollment. But some of that acclaim can certainly be justified, perhaps not in all cases though. </p>
<p>However even with a very substantial merit scholarship, say the 50% range leaves a big hole with the prices of these institutions. Which is why I was asking the question about whether this is all only at the entrance level or are there other resources for kids further into school. Is it just a given these days that art school students graduate in debt? I guess so, but I suppose that’s true across the board for all degrees. But having graduated with a an art degree many years ago, I think it can be even more problematic working your way out of that debt.</p>
<p>wow fammom my head hurts, speak common english, not economish.
I got it though, loosely. and let’s not forget those schools recycle reuse reduce big shot administrators all the time. I won’t be surprised if they are all BFF, like RISD Redsox MICA Orioles Cooper Yankees exchange uniforms but same faces doing same stuff, just that some hit better throw better look good on TV commercials… oh no what I am saying… baseball anyone? Ti’s the season!</p>
<p>FAM- I get what you are saying, but lets through a couple more variables into the mix and then it ends up a little more hopeful- except that I think we co-opted the OPs thread about not-merit aid.</p>
<p>Ok- the first variable I want to throw into the mix is VCU. If you go to USNWR and look at graduate school rankings (cant find undergraduate rankings) VCU is a very serious contender in most fields. VCU is also an incredibly good buy. Plus the kids who get some merit aid from MICA and so on also get merit aid from VCU. Ringer Ringers probably go for free. My son is probably ranked baby-ringer, and he got a really really decent package from VCU. So if Im MICA, or SAIC, and I see that VCU is up there in the arts rankings maybe I wont be so complacent with the ringers, and semi-ringers. Additionally VCU has the added appeal of being one of the top ranked art schools, and its in a university. So its affordable, and for all the kids who cant convince their folks that they really just want to go to art school, it is a good compromise. So then SAIC and MICA has too things they have to compete with, VCU is a cheap, more than decent art program in a university. </p>
<p>Now I cant remember what my hopeful second variable is…</p>
) that has some interesting info in it: