Financial Aid

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
21

<p>I don't think peer institutions has anything to do with financial aid, or if it does it isn't the reason for its existence. Rather, CMU's academic and administrative decisions happen with an eye to what's happening at these schools, at least that's how I interpret it. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.cmu.edu/ira/index.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cmu.edu/ira/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>We faxed them financial aid statements from Johns Hopkins and Boston U neither of which are on the list of peers. It got us 2500 extra per year besides a nice package to begin with. Guess we were lucky. I don't think CMU does this just to be jerks, it has to do with a small endowment. Unfortunately it means they lose a lot of great potential students.</p>

22

<p>CMU, like other relatively "new" universities, is at a great competitive disadvantage compared to its "peer institutions" for having a much smaller endowment. I anticipate that will change though in the next decades when the current generation of potentially prominent alumni who have recently graduated/are graduating today will contribute larger sums of money to the university's endowment. David Tepper's recent gift to the School of Business may be an indication of the trend to come (or so CMU's administration hopes !).</p>

23

<p>Not only did we get nothing, zilch, nada, but they wouldn't match other scholarship offers. Needless to say, my daughter went somewhere else.</p>

24

<p>Kid's HS classmate (first chair) she attends Cinncinatti Conservatory. Don't know what she got but no complaints that we hear.</p>

<p>I think the strategy is brilliant and worthy of CMU inventiveness.
School "A" is a need blind school. It gets all the "A" students with and without $.
Schl "B" is merit school, a peer and attract same caliber of CMU.
Schl "C" CMU is merit school, and pseudo known to be stingy but will match if needed to acquire student.
Schl "D" is merit school but not as well known as B or C. </p>

<p>Schl A: Gives token aid to Wealthy students to make them feel good. It gives generous $ to truly needy but realizes that still not enough and prospective student may feel out of place compared to smart AND Money'd students. Smartness is not the issue- social and economic class perception is foremost.</p>

<p>Sch B: Gives Good Merit aid and as much need aid as it can afford.</p>

<p>Schl C: Low balls merit aid and need aid. </p>

<h2>Schl D: Bids high for students because it is trying to raise standard and is in competition with better known schools. Better known but not necessarily better quality. </h2>

<p>Prospective STUDENT (not the STUDENT in statistics) sees all four offers.</p>

<p>He/she may choose "A" because he has the money and he sees the prestige as more important than what ever education he may receive at school A. Other schools are out of running.</p>

<p>Student may choose "D" because most $ in aid. But School D looses in that it had to buy the student and thus does not have $ to do other important things. </p>

<p>If student chooses "B" peer school. Then C school looses only if it refuses to match offer. The choice is back in the hands of CMU and no longer the student's decision. CMU can either match, offer somewhat more, or stand pat. If the student takes CMU's match, or increased offers, CMU Knows that it gets a student that it did not have to over bid, gets a student who wants to go to CMU even at a higher out of pocket expense, and is who willing to make whatever sacrifice to be at CMU.</p>

<p>B school cannot offer 2nd bid because they will be percieved to be skinflints and should have offer a higher aid amount in the beginning. School C will look good because it tries to be careful with scarce $ (a good virtue), realizes it made a too low of bid and tried to mend its ways (makes student feel good), and ultimately CMU and STUDENT achieves student-price "equalibrium".</p>

<p>Got it? two more to go and then I'm a pert. And will "try" to go away.</p>

25

<p>addendum: ALL is IMHO. Make your own hypothesis and conclusions. </p>

<p>School C financial offers is a method to fill slots and has no bearing on the quality or the ability to pay of the students. In my estimation, CMU would rather have all foreign students because they are full pay. There is no lack of foreign students who want to attend. However the mandate of Carnegie and Mellon is to give the America's general working class a good education, among other things which prevents foreign student overpopulation.</p>

<p>We didn't know about the "match" either. Only found out when I mentioned to older bro that kid was accepted but no buckos. Bro remembered NYT article in previous years college issue and tracked it down. Was able to a get a some $ but we are otherwise full pay. CMU played hand beautifully. Enuf to set hook and reel us in without wasting bait or energy.</p>

26

<p>It's interesting that you mention the mandate to give the working class a good education, itstoomuch. Here is some background info from the CMU website:</p>

<p>"Carnegie Technical School was founded in 1900 by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie as a technical school for working-class Pittsburgh. The school became Carnegie Institute of Technology, or "Tech," in 1912 and merged with the Mellon Institute of Research in 1967 to become Carnegie Mellon University."</p>

<p>I know that a couple of generations ago, this was definitely true. If you could gain admission, you could afford to attend. They found jobs for students and whatever they earned was good enough for expenses. (How about that!) Now, it seems that Andrew Carnegie's mission to educate local students from the blue collar working class is lost. How many of those people can afford to attend, even with a modest financial aid package? CMU no longer cares about those folks, and I agree with you that they would fill every seat with full fare foreign students if they could. In fact, they don't want too many local students of any economic status because it would hinder their international reputation. This change, while possibly seen as "necessary", is looked upon sadly by some of it's older alumni. I wonder if they are inclined to contribute or include CMU in their wills? (But I guess if you have a few "Teppers", it doesn't really matter.)</p>

<p>It is what it is.</p>

27

<p>CMU is a private and owes nothing to applicants or acceptees. Sure it can forget new buildings like the Gates building and use that money to send more kids to CMU (which is not desirable as it lowers the value of the degree and education). This year's freshman class is the largest ever and will benefit from the school's new facilities, faculty, education, and job networking. Unlike some schools, the budget is not unlimited and there are serious economic choices to consider. </p>

<p>CMU can either use its limited funds to build new facilities and improve the value of their degree through using it on the school like it has been doing (placing very well on listings/rankings and helping its students find amazing jobs) or it can stop such improvement/development and send kids to a campus that lacks the funds to progress.</p>

<p>I think the choice is clear. Welcome to capitalism. </p>

<p>"I anticipate that will change though in the next decades when the current generation of potentially prominent alumni who have recently graduated/are graduating today will contribute larger sums of money to the university's endowment. David Tepper's recent gift to the School of Business may be an indication of the trend to come (or so CMU's administration hopes !)."</p>

<p>Agreed. The Gates building, Google's new office in Pitts, and a lot of other new projects will definitely help. The CS and IS programs are now recovering from the 2001 bubble burst and their jobs have been better (IS now boasts 60k+ mean/median). Tepper has been getting huge applicants and many new freshman here have chosen it this year OVER Stern. I can only see good things for CMU in the future.</p>

28

<p>I don't disagree with you, AcceptedAlready, that CMU is spending its limited funds to build new buildings and programs. I am only saying that the original mission of Andrew Carnegie has been discarded somewhere along the way. They have chosen to change from offering an affordable education to students of local blue collar families to seeking students from national and international locations and those who can either afford the big price tag or those who are willing to assume that much debt. This much is clear.</p>

<p>Product is not always necessarily related to money. Many of the outstanding students of yesteryear who attended under the original mandate went on to do great things and make significant contributions to society. </p>

<p>I'm not saying CMU isn't a great place, but it is a great place for a different population than the founder, Andrew Carnegie, originally intended.</p>

29

<p>"the original mission of Andrew Carnegie has been discarded somewhere along the way"</p>

<p>Maybe so but this is not the YMCA or a Catholic Church. Private universities are businesses with profits, losses, assets, and financial liabilities. Businesses change CEOs and presidents all the time with different views and goals. By the way, Carnegie may have treated his workers better than others but he still exploited them.</p>

<p>"Product is not always necessarily related to money. Many of the outstanding students of yesteryear who attended under the original mandate went on to do great things and make significant contributions to society. "</p>

<p>Of course there are bright students in EVERY generation and community college grads can be very successful in life too. This is not the point. The point is that with limited funds you can either improve and help out the CURRENT students (so they can be more successful, donate more, and further improve the university by their accomplishments in the future) or you can stagnate the university and bring a few more kids in while your peers surpass you. </p>

<p>A couple years ago, nobody KNEW of business/industrial management at Carnegie Mellon. This year kids are choosing it over Stern and our mode companies in 2005 and 2006 surveys include Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch, IBM Consulting, JP Morgan, etc. I think that alone shows how much David A. Tepper's contribution (both financial-wise and intellect-wise) helped Carnegie Mellon. Note: David is now a member of the board and helps with decisions and networking for CMU.</p>

<p>"I'm not saying CMU isn't a great place, but it is a great place for a different population than the founder, Andrew Carnegie, originally intended."</p>

<p>Agreed, but I bet Lenin/Stalin wouldn't have wanted the Russia of today either :)</p>

30

<p>It is what it is. ;)</p>

31

<p>Well, I just ran across this thread -- most interesting. </p>

<p>I keep coming back to CMU wondering why it isn't on my son's list -- then I remember, oh yeah, no way can we pay for that! </p>

<p>Thanks for reminding me.</p>

32

<p>weenie, where is your son applying? We couldn't pay for it either but S got workable financial package as good as those at other schools. Now he's working and has no apparent problem repaying school loans of 40K, I believe it's about 400/mo. As you can see from this thread not all are happy.</p>

<p>I don't think CMU just doesn't care about local kids. I counted 71 kids in S's class (from his class's Pic Book) from Pgh itself...I don't know if that's good or bad but doesn't seem too small considering these kids appear to be from around the world. Plus add on those from Pgh suburbs (I don't know the names of those towns listed) and I'd estimate 10% or so of the class might be from the city and suburbs.</p>

<p>Maybe they're all RICH Pittsburgh kids ;)? Dunno but they can't ALL be.</p>

<p>I think Carnegie would be proud of his school today. It's the youngest school in the top 25. It retains its technical school heritage through its emphasis on engineering, technology and computer science.</p>

<p>btw GSIA has been known for quite a while, actually has been ranked higher in the past than today, back when Herb Simon and his crew were developing and running the school. Then it stagnated and is back on the upswing....$55 million and a new name helps.</p>

33

<p>What was it ranked back in the day? Newsweek compared Tepper as overlapping with Wharton in their '06 Ivy article and quite a few of the new freshmen this year have picked the school over Stern.</p>

34

<p>I googled this but can't find where I read it. This was before usnews rankings. </p>

<p>The only thing I can find relatively quickly is from Edwin Fenton's book Carnegie Mellon 1900-2000 A Centennial History, CMU Press.</p>

<p>Talking about GSIA in the 60's when they were introducing Computer Science into the B-school:</p>

<p>"(Dean Leland Bach) soon recruited a remarkable faculty which included Herbert A. Simon. William W. Cooper, James March and Charles Holt. Shortly, Franco Modigliani, Richard Cyert, Allen Newell and a number of additional scholars joined the group. Within a short time the school was renamed the Graduate School of Industrial Administration and was organized around four programs....all of which broke new grounds. Within a few years, the business school regularly ranked among the top three or four in the country and won substantial financial support from the Ford Foundation and other funding sources. Business students frequently won the Ford Foundation's awards for the best business school doctoral dissertations."</p>

35

<p>My daughter is looking at CMU too. She plans to apply to the Chemical Engineering Dept and has a very good chance at joining one of the CMU Division III sports programs. I know they don't give athletic scholarships for Division III but I've heard they can give 'academic' scholarships instead. Anyone know about this?...or how aggressive CMU is about giving scholarships to women in engineering?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

36

<p>Hey Jack_Riley50, it is definitely than women are more likely to get academic scholarships in a department where they are underreprsented. Therefore all other factors being equal, it would probably be easier for a woman to get merit aid from CIT and H&SS.</p>

<p>If you want, you can post info about your daugther's qualifications and perhaps some other people and I can comment on what we feel your daugther's chances at merit aid would be.</p>

<p>Best of luck to your daughter in the college process and feel free to ask any more questions you might have.</p>

37

<p>Her highest scores were her ACT tests</p>

<p>Composite 32
English 35
Mathematics 28
Reading 34
Science 29</p>

<p>She has a 740 on SAT II Biology, Molecular.</p>

<p>She has a 3.5 average at a small college prep private high school. Plus, she's very active in community service.</p>

<p>Based on the financial threads I've read in the CMU forum, I'm concerned that we won't get much financial assistance... what about the sports angle? Does that help get you some 'academic' scholarships?</p>

38

<p>Your daughter would appear to have a good chance of getting in, but in my opinion, it is highly unlikely she would get merit aid. CMU is stingy with merit aid (and financial aid for that matter), and a 32 composite correlates to roughly a 1420 on the SAT, which is only slightly above CIT's average. Also the math and science scores (which are probably the most important for a prospective engineer) are slightly below average.</p>

<p>As far as CMU giving academic scholarships in place of athletic scholarships (because they can't give them as a D III), I'm not too sure about that. Perhaps someone else would be able to help you better on that. It would seem quite unethical, but one would be kidding himself if he thought everything that goes on in the world is ethical.</p>

39

<p>As far as the merit / financial aid goes, it seems that there's such a huge disproportionate ratio of males to females in engineering that CMU would (should?) want to award $$ to bridge that gap...or maybe diversity isn't as important for CMU. We heard some other colleges REALLY stress diversity with respect to women in engineering.</p>

40

<p>Jack is right but I wouldn't use a word such as "huge". CMU does prefer more women but more so in fields like Engineering and SCS than in other schools like, say, CFA/HSS. It definitely helps that she is applying to CIT though and in my experience they tend to give more aid to females + minorities that they want to attend.</p>

<p>Anyways it is just about impossible to determine who or how much aid CMU will give. My roommate has gotten full aid (most in grants) while having low stats (comparatively) which is why he is attending.</p>