Here is a way to see if the college in question is a NACAC member or not: https://hub.nacacnet.org/institutionmemberdirectory
…but honestly most are, from community colleges to art schools to big state Us to LACs to Ivies. I suppose I’d ask them how they square their policies with the stated ethical guidelines of the organization they are a part of.
3puppies, I said my kids COULDN’T pay for multiple deposits. They had to make one choice, to either deposit early or wait on other schools if the deposits were not refundable (and even if they were refundable, I couldn’t afford hundreds of dollars in deposits at several schools for each). My kids also understood that I don’t pay late fees for registering for ACT or SAT classes, late fines at the library, for lost ID cards or extra fees for Early Bird boarding on Southwest airline. They don’t have the luxury to waste money.
I think it is fair if the schools only allowed lottery housing, lottery class registration, don’t offer LLC housing, don’t have summer sessions for some special programs. If the schools don’t want to deal with housing until after May 1, that’s fine with me. Schools can do whatever they want as long as their policies are clear. Some students won’t want to take the chance at lottery housing and will go to a school where they can deposit early and get first choice. It’s up to the schools to give priority registration, housing, special programs, rolling admissions, ED and how they handle things.
My second daughter is an athlete and gets priority registration. I don’t think it has made one bit of difference. She gets the classes she needs, but so does everyone else.
@psfk2417 - this is a rich vs poor debate because the school is allowing the rich to have a choice that the poor can not afford
Okay, life’s not fair to the poor but we make it work because it isn’t going to change (and I don’t think it is unfair)
@OHMomof2 - I’d already looked it up and it is a member school.
The forum for the school isn’t very active on CC. There’s a group on FB that is much more active and several GroupMe groups that D is a part of. Lots of kids are putting down the nonrefundable housing deposit and searching for a roommate and admitting, “I’m not 100% committed.” Whether or not they consider it a problem is probably a matter of their financial situation.
That is not quite true. There are always situations, where schools will waive the housing deposit for students who cannot afford the deposit and are committed to attending the school.
If your child was in a position to be able to afford giving up the potentially better financial aid offer at another school. If ( @twoinanddone it sounds like you told them to make a decision without knowing what other offers might be), it was probably right for your family situation. This is like binding ED - it does not make sense for kids who have to compare offers. I understand that some kids make this choice because they have not applied to as many schools, and they may have heard from all of them. So the decision is easier for some than for others…
What I am trying to say is that poor kids can’t afford this - poor kids absolutely have to compare offers.
I don’t think its right for poor kids to commit to a school and ask for a fee waiver if they don’t really want to go there, any more than I approve of rich kids putting multiple deposits down because they can afford to decide later.
This doesn’t apply to the really really poor who are getting a full ride at great schools, those who got application fee waivers and are not expected to pay a housing deposit - I don’t begrudge them that at all. It is the next level up from them - still poor enough that they need to compare offers to the last dime.
I understand why schools have policies like this - they help ensure they get enough commitments from full pay kids to meet their annual budgets.
There is a certain irony to all of this. Kids apply to a whole bunch of colleges, in almost all cases, way more than they need to apply to, which drives up costs for colleges and drives down their ability to predict how many kids are going to enroll which impacts dorms, classrooms, professors. Yet same kids and families complain when colleges incentivize kids to make a decision and the incentives are really pretty small.
If you can’t afford to put a couple hundred dollars aside for a month then don’t do it, wait until the end then pull the trigger. Almost every college will hold back freshmen level classes so that all freshmen, regardless of orientation date, will have the opportunity to get into those classes somehow and the vast majority of colleges require freshman to live on campus so there should be no fear of not having a bed. And yes, perhaps sleep-away 4- year colleges are “rigged” for people with disposable income but frankly colleges are a privilege not a right and 4 year sleep away colleges are most certainly a privilege. Hedging a bet about one college vs.waiting for another college is also a privilege or choice.
Frankly people who really can’t afford a 4 year sleep away college are probably having their kids attend a local uni or CC for 2 years, so for me the issue of “privilege” is almost moot and arguing that a few hundred dollars tied up for 4-6 weeks is untenable is pretty illuminating considering the bill for the freshman year is going to arrive 60-90 days after that. Sounds harsh, but really think about it in the broadest terms. You and your kids are purchasing a college education to the tune of a whole lotta money and you’ve let a whole lotta colleges know you are interested in purchasing their education so of course colleges are going to do what they can to get you to pick them.
Well, sure, a whole lotta somebody’s money is being spent, but it’s not all the student’s nor the family’s -some of the schools that play games like this are offering some still pretty great need based or merit based financial aid. And these students don’t want to complain and perhaps sound ungrateful. When the bill for freshman year arrives 60-90 days after, parents and students have had the opportunity to apply for loans, that are not yet available in early March.
Again, It is the non-refundable aspect that some schools use, and for some schools the fact that not playing the game may end up costing the applicant more if they don’t commit early enough to get the cheaper housing. For a student getting $50K of aid off a $60K bill, they still have to pay $10K. But if they don’t play the game and get more expensive housing, it could cost them $12K - twenty percent more. If they were struggling to pay $10K, sometimes $12K is out of the question - I know in my family two thousand dollars is a very big deal - it won’t completely break us but we’d feel it a lot more than most of the families here on CC.
I don’t expect a lot of sympathy here, as I know not a lot of folks here really relate to what living on the edge, maybe not quite paycheck to paycheck, but close, can mean. I am sure there are some here who don’t want to consider how policies like this can affect these people, or who will simply say - well you just can’t afford to go there so why did you even apply? But of course, they will say that not understanding that maybe some of these families can afford $10K but cannot afford $12K. And while they would really struggle to pay $10K, they would prefer to make sure that the other options - hearing from schools where it might cost them $6K or $8K - but they don’t know that until they hear decisions at the end of March.
IMHO, the schools that play these games need to be called on it - and from what I understand some are getting better at the housing transparency issue - at least, more are making the housing estimate in the COA calc used for the FA letter more likely to match the highest cost dorm, instead of the “average” or worse, using the lowest cost dorms.
But I think it is disingenuous to tell a family it would cost $60K but after aid/loans it will cost $10K, then say oops, you didn’t jump through this hoop in time, so now it will cost you $12K. Some may disagree with me, and if they don’t say so out loud, they may still be thinking this is simply ungrateful. And it is a fear of this attitude that prevents many from complaining.
Sounds like most folks here don’t want to consider possibility that the little benefits they get by committing early might just be pushing away some other applicants. They’d rather say it’s a shame that some others cannot afford the privilege of attending, instead of admitting that the benefits they got for their own families are even a small part of the problem.
But someone is going to have to pay for the more expensive housing, and how would holding it all back until May 1 and then having a lottery guarantee it was going to go to a poor student? If the poor student can sign up in March, and that’s the ONLY housing he can afford, he needs a way to guarantee that cheaper housing.
Then at the very least, make it refundable
I’m surprised that it isn’t - at least to an extent. Our school was $300 down but $200 refundable if you cancelled by May 1.
But as to the other point, actually I think a lot of people can related to not being able to put more than one deposit down. We only even applied to two schools as my husband has been laid off for almost a year. But here’s the kicker, cause we did pretty okay in 2015, we don’t qualify for any aid whatsoever. So in the life’s not fair category, there are many flavors. We are fortunate to have a kid who understood that merit was king and that we literally couldn’t pay anything but one deposit. So waiting for other offers was not something we got to, cause financial packages didn’t care that our life took a bad swing in 2016. (Yes professional judgement might have gotten him aid at a better school but if husband found a new job we’d suddenly have and EFC again when we would trying to be putting our own house back in order…)
College search and selection is filled with tons of not fair stuff. We choose to accept our path and be grateful that there have been opportunities for our son at all.
Just for clarification, aren’t all deposits (whether refundable or not) credited toward the first year’s bill so you would not be losing your money if you do attend?
Imagine the havoc it would cause if all deposits were required to be refundable. Everyone who got accepted would then immediately send in his/her deposit. A school always accepts more students then they expect to enroll. As an example, with a Yield Rate of 30%, that would mean roughly 2 out of every 3 who deposited would ultimately not attend.
What do you all think would be an appropriate deadline for schools to set to get a definitive answer from a student before a school may start to assign academic advisors, organize summer orientation sessions, figure out if they have enough dorms rooms, make room assignments, and determine if they have enough professors to handle the number of incoming students for each major? For a large state university you may be talking close to 20,000 or more accepted students with a potential yield of only about 7,000. How much time would you give a school for such a daunting task? And who is supposed to pick up the cost of tracking and processing all the requests for refunds? Most likely it would just be passed on to those who actually attend in the form of a tuition increase.
If deposits were refundable and everyone immediately sent in their deposits, then no one would have an advantage on selecting dorms or classes so it doesn’t seem to be a viable solution. Conversely, it would seem that allowing first come first serve is a very practical way to reward those who can commit early by giving them the opportunity to pick the cheaper dorms. And since the “Rich” people want the best of everything anyway, they would all choose the most expensive dorms and leave the cheap dorms for the “Poor” people.
Besides anecdotal evidence, does anyone have factual data that shows that “Rich” people double deposit and “Poor” people don’t?
I have not lost sight of the OP’s ( @SuburbMom ) concern which was about being “forced” to make a commitment before knowing all your other options. To that I would say if you are 95% sure of a school, and that you could “afford” to attend that school, then you only have a 5% chance of forfeiting that deposit. But if you want to weigh all options to see where you can get your best deal, then perhaps another school would be at least $575 cheaper than your first choice, so in essence, you would have gotten your $575 deposit back.
My son’s U (big public) has only a Matriculation deposit - which includes a housing deposit. It’s $400 and refundable if you request that in writing by May 1. If you send the request postmarked after May 1 you’re not going to get it back. You can request roommates up until around late June. All freshman are required to live on campus and they guarantee dorm space for frosh.
Apparently they are outliers in this?
Many posts so far have been written from students and their families’ perspectives. There is however another perspective that universities need to consider when they determine their deposit policies (part of enrollment management); that is, their fiduciary responsibility to the other stakeholders. Take public universities as an example, the State and its residents are important stakeholders because they fund some of the universities’ operating budget. If these universities do not hit the enrollment target and end up with a lower revenue, either the State and its residents (that is, you and me) need to fund more or the some staffs and the staff would need to let go. is it fair to the State, residents, and the university’s employees?
It is a balance act between enrollment management and the financial burden of deposits. In general, higher ranked universities tend to have a more friendly deposit policy because they have a large application pool and higher yield and thus their enrollment management tend to be easier. In contrast, lower ranked universities tend to have a tougher job to please everyone.
You aren’t FORCED to do it, but it clearly gives preference to people who can afford to come up with the money early and run the risk of losing it.
No it’s not fair to reward “those who are ready to committ”. Many people need to see the financial/merit aid packages before they committ.
Many colleges have no problems sorting out housing and classes between May and August.
“Then at the very least, make it refundable.”
This may not solve the problem of affordable housing. Making deposits refundable will just mean that people will put down deposits at most, if not all, of their choices. If my family puts down deposits in the cheapest dorms at five universities knowing that kid will only attend one, then it is quite possible that four low-income kids won’t get into the cheap dorm of their choice because we are taking up a spot we won’t use. At least with the system the way it is, it rewards lower income students who know where they want to go to school and where they want to live. At least have a guarantee to find an affordable option for them.
Perhaps one solution would be for colleges to set aside a certain number of rooms in each dorm guaranteed for lower income students that could then be released to the general population if they don’t fill - similar to how a block of hotel rooms is set aside for attendees of conventions and such.