<p>*...a "family of four -- married parents, a high-school senior and a 14-year-old child -- making $130,000 a year," with typical financial aid, would pay around $17,000 for tuition, room and board and other expenses, if their child went to Harvard. However, if their child attended a Cal State, they would pay $24,000. Going to the University of California, Santa Cruz would cost around $33,000; at UC Berkeley would be about $19,500.</p>
<p>Other Ivy League schools including Yale University and Princeton University offer similar financial scenarios...*</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are rich enough that they can out-financial-aid any other school besides the military service academies, although it was only in the last decade that they actually did their big financial aid initiatives. So this is not exactly breaking news – it is actually several years old.</p>
<p>On the other hand, so few students get admitted to those schools (and a few others of comparable financial aid generosity) that there is no way that they can be counted on as financial safeties.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know if this is a particularly illuminating point. After all, we unfortunately live in a society where rich children are likely to enjoy educational advantages in general. Poor children are generally relegated to bad neighborhoods with unsupportive social environments and low-quality schools, and hence suffer from reduced opportunities of going to any college, not even a CalState. Heck, plenty of poor children never even graduate from high school. </p>
<p>I’m also not sure what to make of the Pell Grant percentage figures comparing HYS vs. UC. Such figures could be easily explained by the fact that UC are simply less selective than HYS. Sure, UC educates far more poorer students, but those poorer students are on average, simply not as qualified as the poor students at HYS. Since academic achievement tends to be correlated with wealth, it is little surprise that HYS tends to have fewer Pell Grant recipients than does UC. {Indeed, even the UC student population surely skews relatively highly on the family socioeconomic scale, compared to the average California family. I can think of a number of former Berkeley students who were trust-fund millionaire babies. There aren’t that many Berkeley students who came from the worst poverty-wracked ghettos.} </p>
<p>{Now to be fair, where UC does deserve great credit is in its ability to attract a higher percentage of Pell Grant recipients relative to the CSU’s. This indicates that, pleasantly surprisingly, the UC’s are actually fulfilling its public mission of serving poorer students better than the CSU’s are, despite the higher selectivity of the UC’s. This seems to be an issue with the CSU’s that merits further investigation.} </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the bottom line of the HuffPo article is that it is becoming an increasingly harder case to make that students should prefer UC if they can get into one of the top private universities instead. Not only do those other schools seem to offer more academic & career resources per capita and arguably a stronger brand (especially in the case of Harvard, which is indisputably the world’s predominant higher-educational brand name), but may also actually be cheaper to boot.</p>
<p>Not sure where you and the article writers have been, but it has been true for several years that a small number of highly selective private universities have been offering hugely generous need-based financial aid (though many of their students are still full pay) that outcompetes just about every other school (besides the military service academies) in generosity.</p>
<p>But only a few needy students are ever able to take advantage of that. A needy top student can certainly apply, but since those schools have <10% acceptance rate (and much of it is taken up by preferred admits like legacies etc.), the needy student have to find additional options including safeties.</p>
<p>Um, trust me, I’ve known full well that the rich private universities have been offering generous financial aid for quite some time now.</p>
<p>But what has changed very recently is that the California public universities have immensely boosted their tuition/fees. The dichotomy of costs between those private schools and state schools has therefore recently become abundantly clear. Only yesterday, students at Cal Poly voted in favor of a fee increase. Only a few months ago did UC announce a nearly 10% increase in fees. </p>
<p>That is why the HuffPo article is timely and newsworthy. Frankly, beforehand, the reasons to choose a state school over those top private schools were already not highly compelling. Those reasons are now even less compelling because of the fee increases.</p>
<p>True, but you still have to get in to the HYS… AND if you do get in, your family had better not make over $150k or so, or the family contribution will be more than a family making, say, $200k can afford.</p>
<p>True indeed, and I’ve never claimed that many would be able to take advantage. </p>
<p>But, like you said, at least they should apply, as they might get lucky. I’ve run into countless relatively poorer students who never bothered to apply to the top private universities at all, because they always thought that even if admitted, they would not be able to afford it. Hence, they were satisfied with simply going to the state schools which were supposedly the cheaper option (as they historically had been). It’s high time for them to understand that this is not so - the state school may actually ironically be the more expensive option, and the top private university may actually be the cheapest option, assuming that you are one of the few who does get in. </p>
<p>And for those poorer students who are only able to be (initially) admitted to a state school, the game is not over. If they do extremely well at UC or CSU for a few years, they could then apply to transfer to one of the top private schools. Granted, private school transfer admissions are even more competitive than are freshman admissions. But you still have a chance. And if you succeed, then you’ve effectively given yourself a “financial scholarship” (in the form of aid) for your final 2 years of undergrad. </p>
<p>I feel conflicted in encouraging students from Berkeley to consider transferring elsewhere, especially to that dang school in Palo Alto. But hey, as long as they’re actually cheaper than Berkeley, it’s hard to come up with strong reasons why students shouldn’t consider this move. What this will likely mean is that the very best-performing Berkeley freshman/sophomores probably won’t stay.</p>
<p>I agree, it is certainly worth a try for very high stats kids with under $100k family income. That would leave a spot at the Cal et al public schools for those kids whose family incomes are just above getting any need based aid. That’s where we are… for us the state schools are significantly cheaper than full-pay at the upper privates.</p>
<p>Actually, any Ivy will do, as will several other top privates, such as (no loan) Vandy or Emory, or the top (and generous) LACs.</p>
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<p>I’ll agree with UCBAlum on this one. This is just not just a recent issue. (Yes it is becoming more pronounced now, but 5+ years ago, my son easily attended a private for a whole lot less than the cost of a UC at instate rates. </p>
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<p>Depending on assets, even a $120k income can receive generous need-based aid at top privates.</p>