“Harvard is among very few need blind schools that do not take into account family asset…”
They do take into account family asset. I think you meant “retirement asset”… They also don’t take into account home equity.
No one is supposed to take into account “protected assets,” when calculating EFC. The question on the CSS is just to assess future stability.
Ignoring home equity is a huge benefit to middle and upper middle class families. It means that families can get significant aid at Harvard and be full pay at other privates. There is no doubt that Harvard is one of the most generous schools in the country for aid.
Home equity is a huge part of family wealth in coast areas of US, especially in places like NYC, Boston, LA, SF and etc. Early this year, on this board, there was an Harvard admit whose family owned a business and had multiple real estate properties. She was given full ride at Harvard while being turned down for full financial aid at other top schools.
If you own a multiple real estate properties, I can’t imagine anyone getting a full ride at Harvard without cheating on the financial report.
I think in that case the real estate properties were tied to the business. @TiggerDad I agree with you that the business asset and home equity should have been considered as a matter of fairness. But Harvard’s extremely generous financial aid practice often overlooks that.
Under typical circumstances, the cutoff for full ride at Harvard would be having less than $200k in assets, not including primary home or retirement. These assets do include real estate investment equity other than primary home. If the properties were heavily leveraged, it’s possible for equity to be quite low and under this threshold. However, that would not explain why she was turned down for FA at other schools and given a full ride at Harvard.
In contrast, there are large differences between how different “top schools” handle primary home equity. Some treat primary home as normal assets, some do not include primary home in assets calculation, and some include it up to a maximum such as 2x annual income. For example, parents who live in expensive home areas like Silicon Valley might get far better FA at Harvard than Yale because Harvard and Yale treat primary home assets differently.
First, I’d like to thank the donor who gave $, so that I could get a free ride as undergraduate. Secondly, I’m more than willing to donate $$. We give to multiple colleges, high schools and our current kids schools ( not even getting into charities). I also raise $$ for the expensive BS my kid attends because I understand what it means to receive financial aid. I can speak to the kid whose parents make 15K and understand. We are happy to be able to support others. Were it not for the generous benefactor(s) who gave my life would have been a series of minimum wage jobs. I was the single student from a dying town who worked really hard and was given several breaks. Instead I became an entrepreneur 2x, (so did my spouse). Have created many jobs and paid a lot in taxes.
There are many who see only the downside of whatever group they consider themselves to be a part of ( middle class, race, low income, low income URM, high income etc). They point fingers at people in other groups. What they often can’t see is the big picture. When someone donates millions to a college they are paying the way for dozens of kids. You might not like that their son/daughter gets an advantage but you’ll still take their financial aid ( which comes from donors). Without big donors, there are no big aid packages. Without big donors those stadiums, libraries and science buildings don’t get built.
I have been on every side and when I was young, I resented wealth and all it offered. Now, as an adult I see the broader picture. There’s a lot of negativity on CC directed at others. Why not just take a moment and think about what’s fair given our OWN circumstances?
Is it a good example that many donors will support good causes regardless whether their kids will receive special consideration?
@Happytimes2001 Thank you.
We earmark our donations (incl my girls’, which they do on their own,) to FA. We’re grateful.
Next to nobody gets into a tippytop without the qualifications. A few mega donor kids/year. No earthshattering news there. No lives ruined.
@data10: “the cutoff for full ride at Harvard”
There is no full ride at Harvard. Rock bottom is $4600. That likely covers books, personal expenses and travel (and for the $30k family that’s a big deal). Harvard’s most generous financial aid is tuition + room & board unless there is aid beyond that shown by the NPC.
@tiggerdad good to know, thanks. $65k is still above US median family annual income though. So technically not lower income - I suspect the tipping point for H vs MIT packages is family income between 30k and 65k, then.
I assumed the “full ride” comments in this thread meant $0 cost to parents as listed in the financial aid award and/or NPC. The NPC includes allowances for books, travel, and personal expenses in the calculator. However, as you noted, FA recipients are asked to spend a small number of hours doing on campus employment, and those employment earnings are listed in the FA award; so I agree that it is not technically a “full ride.”
That on campus work is to pay the $4600 - not chump change to a low income family (and if its like similar schools it goes up a couple thousand after the first year). And those expenses usually come due (certainly travel and books) before the student gets a job. However, a student loan can (help) bridge that gap (at no-loan schools only).
But still, some schools don’t ask for as large a student contribution from low income families as Harvard does. Yale is $2850 first year (then $3300 later years). Yale lowered it a few years ago in response to concerns that low income students were struggling to come up with it. Amherst is $2200 (and will lower that and support buying dorm things and whatnot if warranted), etc - H is on the high end of expected student contribution, even when parental contribution is 0.
I don’t know enough about Harvard’s or Yale’s FA to comment, but do recall hearing that Yale now offers a $2000 start-up to freshmen to assist with purchase of winter clothing & laptop.
https://news.yale.edu/2017/10/23/financial-aid-policies-expand-third-consecutive-year-2
Yale’s “student effort” contribution is $2850 in term employment + $1600 in summer for a total of $4450 – very similar to the $3000 + $1600 listed in Harvard’s NPC…
Again you are only listing part of the “student effort” contribution. The Amherst minimum student contribution is $2200 + $1300… This is more significantly less than the $3000 + $1600 at Harvard. However, there may be a notable difference in the hourly rate that the respective colleges pay students for comparable positions.
Good catch @Data10 - Yale just reduced theirs but it’s still really high. Amherst is actually $2200 + $1000 according to MyIntuition calc. And A will help with dorm setup (~$400ish) and waive the summer expectation at least one summer if needed. (I see Yale also offers “start up” funding - can’t link because of word in url)
H and A are both in Mass so minimum wage is high ($11 an hour on the way to 15 by 2023) . There may be some positions that pay more than that. Conn is $10.10.
I am using the NPC calc, which lists $2200 + $1300 = $3500 student contribution for Amherst. This $3500 student contribution is identical to the $2200 + $1000 + 300 = $3500 Amherst allows for personal expenses, books, and travel. Amherst calc assumes students require fewer personal expenses beyond tuition and room & board than Harvard, which relates to why Amherst’s calc chooses a smaller student contribution than Harvard’s calc. “Personal” expenses are variable from student to student. If an Amherst and Harvard student had the same personal expenses, they’d require similar student employment contributions.
Pay rates vary by job position and are usually above minimum wage. For example, Harvard pays FWSP undergrads $20/hour who do work on their web site. I worked on Stanford’s web site when I was a student and received more than Harvard’s wage for this position (after adjusting for inflation). However, Amherst pays less for comparable positions on their job board, but more than minimum wage.
The out of pocket 1-4K that students need for books, toiletries, winter jackets, shoes and toilet paper can be a real hardship. Often the money from a student on site job goes to minor thing like this. During Summers when the student is young, he/she may not have the experience to get more than a minimum wage job. In many of these families, the kids are paying for their own food and clothes already. The $50-100 bucks a week that kids would spend on these things are used up quickly at minimum wage. When I was an undergraduate, I had to make shampoo last and rarely went out with friends. Just could not afford it if I was saving for books or other necessities. Some colleges realize that this is a reality for kids and have tried to close the gap. But I am sure it still exists. It’s a big thing and causes a lot of stress for a kid with a “free ride”. When the cafes are closed for example during vacations or for special events the kids might go without food. Seriously.
At boarding schools, there is often a fund for kids so they don’t miss out on things others are doing. Most school related things have a cost in high school or college .When you are low/no income and are 18 you realize pretty quick what these are. Sadly, there may be activities which limit the kids full exposure to undergraduate life. As the students get older they can get better jobs related to the University or locally.
Travel to and from home can also be a big problem for students of low/no income. So I think the discussion of student contribution is REALLY important. For many kids, this is NOT money coming from parents or others, it is coming from the kids and the kids are in places where jobs are not readily available or money is really tight.
With regard to the tip for major donors’ children, it seems to me that it distorts the conversation to talk about whether the admitted students in that category are qualified or not. We could well posit that everyone in that category who is admitted is qualified.
But a very large number of the Harvard applicants are qualified. Then it becomes a question of choosing among the qualified. There, the tip for being the relative of a donor is substantial.
We give to our alma mater, where admission is not that difficult and would certainly have been guaranteed for our daughter. We are not giving for personal advantage. I have a somewhat jaundiced view of “charitable” contributions that are really a way of buying something one wants, at a cost that is affordable to the very wealthy.
We have set up scholarships that do not displace other financial aid for the recipients, but rather offer them opportunities for summer research or study abroad which they might not otherwise be able to afford. The primary qualification is by under-representation of all kinds, which includes students from rural backgrounds, from weak high schools, from families with challenges, and foster children.
There aren’t enough qualified 17 year old big donor kids to displace much. Not all big donors even have kids in the age group. Along with other special admits, they form, ime/another school, less than 1% of the class.