Hi everyone. Congratulations to all who have just completed the college admissions process! Yesterday our DD accepted an offer from a wonderful college and paid her deposit. She’s ecstatic; we’re done; and we’re all looking forward to her high school graduation and a happy summer.
The process has been exhausting and intense for many reasons that people have discussed on CC and other sites. As we begin to put it all in our rear-view mirror, I’d like to share my thoughts about an issue that has become a very noisy bee in my bonnet: the controversy surrounding “merit aid”, which is financial assistance given to students that is based not on need but on students’ grades, scores, and accomplishments during high school.
A few possibly relevant facts to clarify our own experience. Our DD applied to a number of schools ranging from large state and private universities to small private colleges. Six of the 7 private colleges which accepted her offered merit aid ranging from $10,000 a year to $25,000 a year. The seventh, a top five LAC, does not give “merit aid” per se but defined her need in such a way that its financial offer fit comfortably into the middle range of that spectrum. But we were very lucky.
According to many college admissions professionals and a fair number of commentators, “merit aid” is a bad thing because (1) students who receive merit awards disproportionately hail from better-educated families with incomes above the norm, and (2) the more merit-based scholarships colleges award, the less money is available for need-based aid, leaving students from poorer families (at least those whose achievements do not qualify them for merit-based assistance) out of luck. Why should “rich” kids get financial assistance they don’t need while kids from low-income families are left in the lurch?
This argument relies on three premises that are just plain wrong.
First, the fact that a school offers merit scholarships never means that it offers no need-based assistance. Most people agree, and I certainly do, that need-based financial aid is a good thing which helps students from low-income families have access to colleges they otherwise could not afford. Great. The question is whether need-based aid should consume all the available funds to assist students. I argue that it should not, and my reasons follow.
The argument that merit-based aid is bad, or even exploitive (on the part of the “rich” families whose children disproportionately receive it) assumes two other things which are just false: (1) that colleges and the federal government make fair and accurate determinations of each family’s “need” – of who can afford to pay the full bill and who cannot – and (2) that the price of going to college (especially to an excellent private college) is fair and reasonable, so that a relatively high-income family that is unwilling to pay that price is somehow unreasonable or even morally faulty, selfish, etc. These two assumptions are related but also distinct.
In fact, the calculations of “need” for financial assistance, based primarily on the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, are neither fair nor accurate. Very wealthy families, perhaps, can afford the $260,000+ bill to attend a selective college or university these days. But other families, even those with relatively high incomes, are in a very different place. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed put it well: “Everyone can probably agree that Bill Gates’s children don’t need scholarships, says Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for enrollment at DePaul University. But can a family making $160,000 really come up with the $45,000 a year the formula expects? ‘It doesn’t even pass the laugh test,’ he says. A merit scholarship can make college much more affordable for such a family.”
I suppose one could argue that the $160,000 a year family should have saved more for college. But then, one could argue the same thing about many (though certainly not all) families who do qualify for substantial need-based aid. Once we start with the “shoulds”, we go down a very troubling path. Should the parents of a child applying to college have chosen (low-paying) teaching careers when they had the grades and smarts to attend business school for an M.B.A., thereby allowing them to earn enough money to pay for their child’s education? Inquiring minds want to know.
Relatedly, the notion that the student from the $160,000 family should not receive financial aid rests on the assumption that the cost of college is quite fair and reasonable and, thus, any reasonable family should be willing to pay it. To put it mildly, that is not true. As many experts have documented, college costs have risen far above the rate of inflation for decades. $65,000+ per year for an excellent private college is ridiculous. Period. Thus, to the extent colleges are offering merit-based discounts to as many families as possible, I say the more the merrier.
Finally, and independent of the income-related issues, the idea that colleges should not financially recognize high-achieving students for their achievements is anti-excellence in a way so profound that it almost defies description. Watching my daughter work so hard, strive to the utmost, stretch and push herself to reach her goals – and all for the right reasons, because she loves school, loves what she is doing and wants to be the best she can be – my only feeling when she was accepted and when she was offered merit scholarships was pure happiness. Good show, Kid! Well-deserved! Great job! She did it all for the right reasons, but she sure was delighted that some of the colleges to which she applied recognized and valued her achievements. In my opinion, that’s a large part of what a college should be doing.
Sorry the for long post, and many thanks to those of who get through it and might be motivated to respond.