<p>WCASParent, I feel like you are over inflating the extent to which international students are receiving financial aid versus american students. And while all of your analogies seem to make sense on the surface, you just can’t compare the distribution of FA (based on location) to whether a parent is going to help his/her child out, or somebody else’s child, because it’s not the same situation. Obviously there are some university-level politics that require international students to be represented at Tufts. Demographic consideration and the appeal of a diverse campus are obvious reasons as to why FA is dished out across the seas. Plus, Tufts already has parts of its highly regarded reputation rooted in its international awareness and relations. “Prioritizing” Americans to foreigners would be hypocritical at best.</p>
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With tax-payer money, perhaps. With private money: yes, that’s correct. No distinction should be made between US and foreign citizens. The mission of an educational institution is to educate, not to serve as an organ for the advancement of the state. Let the state look after its own interests. </p>
<p>I agree with Acceptd - I don’t think your analogy makes sense. It’s obvious why you feel devotion to your family; you know them, love them, trust them, lean on them for support, you’d do anything for them. But extending that to nations? For me personally, it’s extremely apparent that I have much more in common with someone from Ontario than someone from Alabama. My link to someone in Alabama is that we pay taxes to the same government. Alright, so perhaps our tax money should only go to people “like us” (people “like us” in this sense being people who pay taxes to the same place).<br>
Your argument seems to claim that when times get tough, people should look out for their own. I just don’t see how a stranger from my country is any less foreign to me than a stranger from India. What makes other Americans “my own” over and above our shared humanity?</p>
<p>Acceptd- I didn’t state, or overstate, the relative financial aid grants of foreign and U.S. citizens, because I wouldn’t presume to have any idea about those figures. I wish I did. I would like to know, for example, what sort of FA dollars are awarded per capita to those two applicant groups. And I absolutely agree with you that there are a lot of excellent reasons to want to extend FA dollars to foreign citizens, especially given the nature of Tufts’ reputation, its IR program and its global focus. In fact, I absolutely believe that if you want to create an educational atmosphere in which students’ appreciation and respect for other peoples’ differences is to grow, you need to have all sorts of different people in that educational environment. As I said, I am not advocating a specific position; I am raising questions about a matter that is of greater concern in light of present economic conditions. </p>
<p>Snarf- The above should serve, in part, to respond to you to vis-a-vis my thinking. And you apparently don’t disagree with my statement about “taxpayer money”; as I said, however, that issue is more complicated because the tax-exempt nature of universities means that they are effectively subsidized by taxpayers beyond the monies received more directly from the government. And as for looking out for “our own,” I can appreciate that to you students from Alabama might seem more “foreign” than someone from Ontario, because the same would hold true for me; but that wasn’t my point. Reasonable minds can differ, and we evidently do. That’s fine. But for me, for example, if I had funds to give one talented and deserving student a full scholarship to Tufts, and my choice was between someone from a remote town in Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana vs a citizen of another country, I would pick the U.S. citizen. I would endeavor to put another educated person back into that remote southern town, because I’d like to have one more person who can contribute to rebuilding the U.S. and who can help support those less fortunate Americans who are dependent on the state for support and one less person who needs such support.<br>
Bottom line: I appreciate that there is a difficult balancing that needs to be done here. I would like to know where that “balance” presently is, and what factors are taken into account in making decisions.</p>
<p>Snarf- One other thing: my point was not just about Tufts, but about American higher education in general. With respect to the numerous public universities, some of which are among the most respected in the country - e.g., Michigan, UVa, William & Mary, Berkeley and UCLA - they most definitely ARE “organs of the state” and it is among the state’s specific roles to educate its own citizens. These institutions are dependent upon taxpayer money (which is why I suspect UCLA and Berkeley might now be less generous with FA - because the State of California is broke).</p>
<p>WCASParent, a deeper issue here might be our differing opinions on taxation policy. That’s an entirely different discussion, and one I’d be quite happy having, but this is perhaps not the best place for it.</p>
<p>The structure of finance for higher education is not fair and has never been for those who are at the border of not being poor enough to get aid but making too little to attend a 50,000 dollar a year school without having to either deplete retirement funds or take out huge loans. </p>
<p>As for international applicants: The thing is, we hope that by bringing international students here we build up a global trust between nations and make them feel like the US is a great an inviting place. Hopefully later they’ll come back to invest or when they get into power in their countries will look favorably on us. That’s the hope, how accurate it is I don’t know. But that’s why schools in theory try to get international applicants. </p>
<p>But that still doesn’t solve the extremely high costs of education here. And quite frankly, I have no clue how we solve that.</p>
<p>I’m almost hesitant to jump into the conversation and address earlier questions, as I think the current conversation is extremely interesting.</p>
<p>Nevertheless…</p>
<p>Aside from $500 at the maximum for non-need-based merit winners (link in Snarf’s above post) Tufts does not offer merit awards. The calculations for demonstrated need are not set with a bias towards any particular group - internationally, domestically, or otherwise.</p>
<p>Feel free to return to discussing the value of international financial aid - I’m impressed with the points on both sides.</p>
<p>skateboarder - You’re completely out of the loop, lol. Tufts is not need-blind for internationals, so that means in order to get financial aid at Tufts, you have to request for it. And that means that your application has a “negative” - kind of - since Tufts is not need blind. Therefore you must have other strong qualities to make up for it.</p>
<p>As an international student, you must very rich, or extremely wanted/competitive at US schools in order to get fin. aid.</p>
<p>neethus, to be fair, Tufts treats domestic applicants exactly the same way. We’re not need-blind for anyone.</p>
<p>During our son’s first two years at Tufts we wouldn’t have qualified for any aid, and we paid full tuition. Our situation has since changed to the point that this year he qualified for a Pell Grant. I wouldn’t say Tufts was ‘very’ generous, but generous enough that he can continue to attend, thank goodness.</p>
<p>No private school with the exception of Ivy leagues and the like, and the top LACs are generous to Internationals. I sincerely doubt Tufts would give an international student the same aid and chance to the exact identical permanent resident who applies at the same time. It’s life in the American college system. You got to be way above the line (over 75th percentile in standardized scores, 4.0 GPA or close to it, and outstanding (extremely) ECs), or they’re not going to bother taking you. JHU gave I think less than 50 international students aid, Northwestern gave around 50 international students aid, and U of Chicago gave not very many international students aid lol. </p>
<p>Bottom line: Internationals, unless you’re above the general applicants, don’t bother applying, unless you can become a perm resident through a green card (family usually), outstanding (very) student, or you can jump across the border, hide it out for a few months and become a foreign alien (:P)</p>