<p><<At this time of year, the University receives a number of questions about financial aid. One specific question is about the financial aid appeal process. The Cornell University Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment has an official process, which has been outlined below:</p>
<p>Beginning for 08-09, there is an appeal application form to be completed by the parent or student, in order to make the process easier and more efficient. The form will be available for download on the Financial Aid and Student Employment website (<a href="http://finaid.cornell.edu)%5B/url%5D">http://finaid.cornell.edu)</a>. Receipt of all appeals will be acknowledged via e-mail (or postcard if the e-mail address is unavailable) within 24-48 hours of receipt.
Families should describe in detail any circumstances that have a bearing on the appeal, such as changes in income or unusual expenses, providing necessary supporting documentation with specific dollar amounts where applicable.
A copy of the family’s 2007 Federal Income Tax Return(s) should be on file in the Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment. This information is typically required for appeal evaluation.
If a student has financial aid award letters from peer institutions, the student may forward copies of those letters to the office for award matching consideration. >></p>
<p>My parents make over 250k a year but I still get close to 20 thousand in grant aid. And an additional need 12 thousand in need based scholarships...</p>
<p>So I'm not sure what ya'll are talking about.</p>
<p>And about the appeal thing, they had the parent contribution at $3,000 for me. We simply called, they had us write an email to them, and they lowered it to 0.</p>
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That is the part that people miss. The schools do not expect that you sell your land, business, house,..... What they recognize is that you have borrowing power because of the land, business, house....
<p>if you cant afford cornell...the best thing you can do if you really want a cornell experience is to go 2 years to your state school and then transfer into a program at cornell...</p>
<p>I might as well throw my hat into this ring...</p>
<p>I haven't lived with my father for 14 years. I always lived with my mother, for almost 3 years I lived on my own and for this summer I moved back in with my mother to prepare to leave for Cornell.</p>
<p>While I was living on my own my dad gave me more financial support than my mother, enough that I was still considered a dependent. So when I filled out the profile I had to make my dad my custodial parent. No harm, no foul, right? My dad and my mom's combined income puts me well into the no loan range...</p>
<p>My stepmom has done very well for herself but she doesn't offer me any support, we've never had a relationship like that. Now for some reason, even though I noted this in the profile, instead of the FA office contacting me they decided that I must live with my father and stepmother AND that my stepmother supports me. So I went from anticipating no loans and <$10k a year for Cornell to realizing that they want $40k total, annually (not just parent contribution, but student loans and work study etc).</p>
<p>Now I wait for my appeal to finish. The grounds I used was the fact that I live with my mother, now, and that I've never lived with my father... I have to say, while yes the FA system in general is messed up, Cornell's FA office seems to be protecting their endowment more than they are trying to meet their stated mission of making Cornell affordable. I understand the idea of bureaucratic algorithms for calculating financial aid, but based on the notes in the profile I would anticipate at least a phone call from the office asking about how that can be the case (since they assumed I lived with my father).</p>
<p>So that's my experience, I am trying my best not to have negative feelings towards the FA office at Cornell but I still don't understand how someone can focus so much on "doing their job" that they don't read the comments and try to find out why there is an apparent contradiction...</p>
<p>I used to have a pretty bad attitude towards "rich" people who complained about their lack of aid, but after this experience I've developed a bit more empathy towards the plight of those in the upper middle class trying to navigate their way through college.</p>
<p>I wouldn't go so far as to say that its the worst in financial aid, as most of the evidence that we have is anecdotal. The policy itself is not too much different than other ivies. For instance, Harvard says that they eliminate Parent contribution for families making under 60k or soemthing like that, but the parent contribution for those familieis is already pretty low. Cornell eliminates loans and only asks that people pay something close to reasonable for an Ivy education. </p>
<p>Additionally, the people in the upper tax brackets are asked to pay 10% or something like that of their income. Which if you make like 270,000 a year, is about 27,000. I know people's families who make that kind of money and are expected to pay close to 25k a year by Cornell. So its not that far off. Just framing that makes a difference.</p>
<p>I don't really think most of the evidence we have is anecdotal. I think we can infer this by checking out the policies of other Ivy League schools. Certainly, our policies can't compare with Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. That's for sure. I'm not putting down our FA because of this; they simply have more resources than we do, so that's understandable.</p>
<p>But, look at other Ivies though, ones with similar resources to us (that often also share cross-admits with often).Brown has eliminated loans for students making below 100,000 (Cornell- 75,000), and along with Columbia, eliminated parental contribution for those making below 60,000. Penn and Columbia have completely eliminated loans from their policies. Heck Columbia even expanded grant aid. Dartmouth offers a free ride to those making below $75,000. All Cornell has done is to offer no loans to those making below $75,000, and cap loans for those making below $120,000. We offered no expansion in grant aid or anything like that. </p>
<p>This is a big problem. Before this policy was enacted, Cornell was considered the most socioeconomically diverse Ivy. Within no time, I guarantee you it will become the least. I have mentioned this before, but we are going to lose all sorts of talent to our peer schools because of our lousy financial aid policy. Students won't go out of their way to pay extra money to come to Cornell when a great education can be obtained at one of its peer schools. Something has to be done.</p>
<p>And, making 270,000 and paying 25k a year? There must be some extraordinary situation behind that. My parents make 80k and we pay 25 k per year.</p>
<p>My issue is that Cornell's FA office (based on strong anecdotal evidence) focuses so much on written policy (and in turn protecting their endowment) that students who have less than normal (but not abnormal) family financial situations have to jump through hoops or be excluded through no fault of their own. I do not consider CC a perfect sampling of Cornell's financial aid recipients but I do believe, from what has been said here and from what I myself have experienced, that Cornell's FA department needs alot of work before it will compare, even on paper, to it's peer institutions. I wouldn't be surprised if the head of FA received a larger bonus for giving out less money, that's the type of motivation that spawns behaviors like this in the corporate world. You don't have to have a written policy just clearly defined internal motivators.</p>
<p>I have a week to go on my appeal. If it's rejected I have no way of affording Cornell, I'll probably continue to enroll and make a final appeal in person during orientation. If all that fails Cornell will have considerably impacted my life in a negative way and I have to take a hard look one what options I still have left for me.</p>
<p>I think Brownman's concerns are justified. It is very frustrating as a recent alum to watch the school's socioeconomic diversity (one of its crowning achievements, if you ask me) be withered away by a bunch of richer schools that showed up very late to the party.</p>
<p>The simple answer is the school can't afford it while trying to dedicate resources to so many other important initiatives at the end of the day. </p>
<p>That said, I'm not sure you can consider all of the Ivies as Cornell's peers. Dartmouth, Brown, and Penn? Sure. But Harvard, Yale, and Princeton? No way. And by recent measures, we're still at the top of the heap, but we need to see what happens over the next couple of years.</p>
<p>And we're certainly doing just as well as the Chicago's, Northwestern's, and JHU's of the world.</p>
<p>I never said Cornell should be up there in the Ivy League with HYP in terms of FA. In fact, I said it's understandable that it can't do so. But, I surely think that we can definitely compete with the rest of the Ivy League in FA. Doing as well as the Chicago's, Northwestern's and JHU is not good enough. We're in the Ivy League and they aren't :). We are held to higher standards than they are, as we are frequently compared to most other Ivies whereas they are not.</p>
<p>Situations like that of Rabbithole's are why our alumni donation rates are some of the lowest in the Ivy League. Cornell nickels and dimes us out of everything and puts so much strain on our families... Then they ask why more alumni don't donate. I hope they realize that when cash-strapped students graduate after paying a hefty tuition, they won't donate a single cent back to Cornell.</p>
<p>Well, let's not be too bitter now. I could never understand people's complaints about Cornell's fees. </p>
<p>These costs all need to paid somehow, whether from tuition or voluntary fees, and not everybody really wants a membership to a gym when you can run around campus or go swimming for free. Nor do I think that my money should be subsidizing students who routinely get locked out of their dorm or lose their ID card when I still have my original ID card from seven years ago. You're in college. You should be responsible, like an adult, and have to pay if you lose your keys or ID card or whatnot.</p>
<p>And you would be surprised at some of the perks that Cornell does provide: All the transcripts you want for life are free! Most of my friends at other Ivies had to pay per transcript when applying to graduate school. This is not to mention all of the ridiculous amount of free food, art, lectures, and music that is provided to you every week when you are at Cornell.</p>
<p>Cornell goes to considerable effort so that every student can reasonably afford attending school. Some family's finances may be out of whack for idiosyncratic reasons, especially under George Bush's economy. But there's no reason to be bitter towards Cornell. You can always attend a state school or what have you. Nobody forced you to go to Cornell and take out loans.</p>
<p>And I'm not so certain alumni giving rates can tell you all that much about how satisfied alums are with their undergraduate experience. I imagine plenty of alums only give to their Greek organizations, bypassing the University entirely. Others may have gone into less lucrative careers at a higher rate than many of Cornell's peer schools. Still others may have more of a "state school" mentality, figuring that they are supporting Cornell through their New York State taxes. Most alums I interact with had an overwhelmingly positive Cornell experience. </p>
<p>If it really concerns you so much, start a student organization that helps with the Capital Campaign and start a letter writing campaign for undergraduate scholarships. Otherwise, I don't know what to tell you. Become filthy rich and donate it all to Cornell?</p>
<p>Sorry about my bitterness. Last year I got into three Ivies and Cornell gave me the best package. Had I been a rising freshman now, Cornell would have given me the worst. Looking at my family's cash strapped situation, I just can't help but think some of this could have been alleviated had I chosen one of the other 2 schools I got into (Penn, Columbia), hence the bitterness about CU's new policy. I'll admit though that this feeling is somewhat illogical b/c there was no way I could tell that this was going to happen.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think Penn's policy will be all that much better than Cornell's in practice. Columbia's probably would have saved you ~ $10k though. </p>
<p>But just think about all of the additional expenses you might have had living in expensive cities over a cheap (and beautiful!) college town. At Cornell you can enjoy room and board at a much, much cheaper rate than at Columbia or at Penn by living off-campus.</p>
<p>Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and if you think you are getting a raw deal today, just think about how all of the students who graduated a couple a years ago must feel. Life is all about inequities and random chance. All you can do is learn to make the best of it with a smile on your face.</p>
<p>At the end of the day you are still getting a world-class education subsidized by those who have decided to make an investment in you.</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in my mind is that the world's equities markets are currently in the process of blowing up, and that I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of schools roll back their financial aid policies. We have some rough times ahead of us.</p>