<p>AnxiousMom,</p>
<p>I'm lost. You point out that colleges like NYU cost more than Rice, and from that you speculate that students at Rice won't need (or qualify for?) as much aid as students at NYU because it costs less. If one college costs significantly less than another, presumably the amount of aid awarded (or that the student/family qualifies for) at the less expensive college will also be less. It should be a wash and the median income analysis would still work.</p>
<p>Driver, you crack me up.</p>
<p>NJ Res.... don't listen to the hype and the stereotypes. There are small classes at large universities; don't need an LAC for that. There is income diversity everywhere despite what Mini and others believe. Your kid will find an accomodating group of friends at many schools regardless of what the statistics say about their average incomes.</p>
<p>And if his roommate is the son of a cop and a neonatal nurse from the Bronx who went to a public school, is this kid any less "middle class" just because family income is likely to be over $150K per year than the son of a Dr. from Kentucky with a similar income, but who went to private schools, country club, etc? the fixation on income as a predictor of attitude or "preppiness" confounds me on this board......</p>
<p>I agree with Blossom and Driver on that one. Just look up Byerly's latest news item on the Harvard forum. Well-endowed schools have plenty of socio-economic diversity</p>
<p>And anyway, is income by itself a gauge of middle class attitudes? And what might these be anyway? One CC poster mentioned that her spouse is a sanitation worker in NYC, making up to $200k. Is he then the parent of an affluent, preppy, rich white kid?</p>
<p>
[quote]
We stayed away from "them" during secondary school, why must we now join them in college and leave the others behind? Anyway, please prepare for my future thread, "looking for a high quality LAC that is not dominated by rich white preppy kids."
[/quote]
[quote]
Grinnell, Oberlin, Carleton. The Midwest scares away the "elite".
[/quote]
The cost differential between Carleton and HYPS is minuscule. While
Grinnell is somewhat less expensive, you need an income as high as for HYPS to make it work. </p>
<p>This seems to be a case of wanting your cake and eating it, too. Poor Marie-Antoinette thought that cake (or rather brioche) was as inexpensive as bread. People want prestige but do not want to have to pay for it or to feel guilty about chasing after it.
There are plenty of good schools that are not as "prestigious" as the usual suspects. Whether they will be lighter on the family budget is debatable. And thus, whether they will not be just as full of kids from affluent families is also debatable. One thing that many great midwest LACs lack is diversity. If you want diversity, you are better off at HYP.</p>
<p>Rather than go into labels like, 'wealthy white', look at it this way. These 'wealthy white' parents are more likely to have gone to a more prestigious college themselves and have become ' wealthy white' because of it. These 'wealthy white' are more likely to have prepared their children more extensively for a better higher education through years of enrichment, not intensionally but because this is what interests them and they know no other way of educating their offspring. The doors of these pretigious institutions have been thrown open to all and every effort is made to include everyone who is qualified. It is no one's fault if the ones qualified are the 'wealthy white' who have spent years enriching and investing in their children education.<br>
I hate labels.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm lost. You point out that colleges like NYU cost more than Rice, and from that you speculate that students at Rice won't need (or qualify for?) as much aid as students at NYU because it costs less. If one college costs significantly less than another, presumably the amount of aid awarded (or that the student/family qualifies for) at the less expensive college will also be less. It should be a wash and the median income analysis would still work.
[/quote]
If total fixed costs at Grinnell are $36,730 (2006-07 figures) and your EFC is $37,000 you will not qualify for needbased financial aid. (I'm not using total cost of attendance in these figures for simplicity, and because COA figures are often way off due to travel expenses and underestimated personal expenses, etc.) If the total fixed costs at NYU (2006-07) are $45,100 and your EFC is 37,000 you will qualify for needbased financial aid. If you look at the percentage of students receiving needbased financial aid as a measure of the median income, you might assume that NYU has a lesser percentage of students from higher-income families. And you might be wrong due to the difference in the cost of these schools. :) Also, since Grinnell offers a significant number of merit scholarships, some students who would otherwise qualify for needbased financial aid do not; if your financial need is $13,000 and you are awarded a $15000 merit scholarship, your need is wiped out and you receive no needbased financial aid. (At least until tution/fees/etc rises!!!) ;) HTHs!</p>
<p>edit: of course, with NYU they may very well "gap" you, and then, even though you should qualify for need-based aid, you might just end up with a PLUS loan. :(</p>
<p>i don't know.. i think a lot of students are taking out a LOT of loans.. it's not all on the parents... and i know plenty of wealthy kids who went to my school and it was only 8-9k a year for tuition. and by wealthy i mean family incomes well over 300k. I think it just depends on the kid and what school they want to go to. those kids from my school could of gone anywhere.. but they came to my school.. just as i'm sure there are some kids with family incomes of 30k at harvard financing their life away.</p>
<p>and those of us who don't have parents who make 300k a year never felt out of place with them. those kids actually worked through college, just like we did, to pay for their spending money and such. we all hung out together, did the same stuff, ate the same food, etc.</p>
<p>a brush-up on the nursery school curriculum reminds us that we are each unique, like snowflakes. you are being fooled by costumes. have compassion for those desperate to conform. you need to look at the configuration of the white matter. why care if the snowflakes are black, blue, green, as long as you can build a snowperson? why define yourself by what you are not? having a fit fitting in with the unfit. tell me something that is new and I will give you a fish. condemn the kids for the sins of the rich? squeeze yourself through the eye of a needler. judge not the shampoo. all of us have lost white teeth. </p>
<p>Why insist upon small mind by claiming an affinity?</p>
<p>ban mirrors,...</p>
<p>Fendergirl:</p>
<p>At Harvard, a student who is admitted and whose family makes less than $60k qualifies for a full ride. See under Harvard Financial Aid Initiative.At Yale and Stanford, it's $45k and likely to rise. Princeton is also known to be very generous.
No one who makes $30k is "financing their life away" by attending HYPS.</p>
<p>The fact is often the kids who can qualify for Harvard are kids who have been prepared for this goal for many years and it is the 'wealthy white' who can do it.
If parents have not prepared for the child's college education financially it is often NOT their (the parent's) fault, whether they earn$150,000 a year or $40,000 a year. Too many people I have known have been hit with unfortunate circumstances from disease and illness , to divorce, to loss of jobs, private religious schools which drain income with their tuition, to too many kids. Then there are others parents who morally feel it is the duty of the child to pay for what he wants.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The fact is often the kids who can qualify for Harvard are kids who have been prepared for this goal for many years and it is the 'wealthy white' who can do it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But the wealthy whites are not the only ones "who can do it." 70% receive some sort of finaid. Granted, some of it is chump change, but for many, it is a very significant amount (Byerly just posted about a Moldavian girl from NC who received better financial aid from Harvard than from Duke. That must have been significant aid to tip the balance for Harvard).<br>
In terms of ethnicity, 9% African-American, 8% hispanics, 18% Asian-Americans (very rough figures; I did not check the Harvard website for this post). So roughly 35% non-whites.</p>
<p>I think that it is much more important to ask how, in general, the non-need based students perceive and act on the fact that they are offsprings of relatively affluent families. If most choose not to flaunt it and make social choices based on it, the issue of affluence hardly makes a difference and should be reflected in the campus culture. If the opposite is true then the adverse impacts could in fact be felt by less privledged students.</p>
<p>I know that during the admissions process our son was quickly turned off by what he observed in the students at Rochester while he was totally engrossed by what he observed in the students at Oberlin College. I suspect that the percentage of students from relatively affluent families are similar at both colleges. However the campus culture of both could hardly be more dissimilar. I suspect a similar comparison could be made between the likes of Vassar and Bard, etc.</p>
<p>I think this is one reason our son was immediately comfortable on his visit to Rensselaer. The seemingly classless nerdiness of the culture appealed to him. I know that his 10 housemates run the gamet in terms of family finances and it make not an iota of difference to them. They are all happily living the pauper student life!</p>
<p>oops, wrong thread</p>
<p>The next time you visit a prestige
college campus while school is in
session, take note of the vehicles
the students are driving. Hummers,
BMWs or the Mercedes Sportster
Convertible are a common site
@ Bryn Mawr College. Add in the
$45K for one year of college and
on weekends chauffeured driven
limos picking up/dropping off students.
This is the scenario at a college where
50 to 60 per cent of the students obtain
financial aide.</p>
<p>My selection of Grinnell, Carleton, and Oberlin was based on the fact that they are all more academically focused than pre-professional and all have a very egalitarian feel and culture. They produce more future profs than I-bankers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The next time you visit a prestige
college campus while school is in
session, take note of the vehicles
the students are driving. Hummers,
BMWs or the Mercedes Sportster
Convertible are a common site
@ Bryn Mawr College. Add in the
$45K for one year of college and
on weekends chauffeured driven
limos picking up/dropping off students.
This is the scenario at a college where
50 to 60 per cent of the students obtain
financial aide.
[/quote]
This is total nonsense. I drive by Bryn Mawr College at least 5 times a day. Those poor girls can barely parallel park a Yugo. You might see some of those cars at the private day (K-12) school across the street, though, as some of the parents drop off their kids.</p>
<p>as long as they pick up the check,..and announce it before we order so I know whether or not to get lobster. I love rich friends,...</p>
<br>
<p>This is total nonsense.</p>
<br>
<p>Ditto. Lord knows I'm tough on Bryn Mawr, but this is untrue. Anyone who had a chauffeur pick her up on a weekend would have been the talk of the college and probably would have been laughed out of the dining hall. I never saw a single limousine, Hummer, etc. EVER in two years of living on campus. In fact, I don't think I knew a single person with anything fancier than a used Toyota. At one point one of my hallmates was dating a Haverford guy who drove a late-model BMW sedan and it stirred up a lot of gossip precisely because no one else had anything like it.</p>
<p>You can't park a car in New Haven or Cambridge, so neither BMWs or Hummers in sight. However, I've seen Hummers in the Home Depot parking lot. Needless to say, it's not located near Harvard Square.</p>
<p>I knew a guy in college who drove a Mercedes 450SL. That prompted a few smirks, until his roommate let us know that the guy inherited it when his mother died.</p>