“(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?”
You do realize that the reason those kids who tend to qualify disproportionately for merit-based aid do so because of their “rich” status? This isn’t a question of “poor kids aren’t as good as rich kids, why should they get more than a smart rich kid!” Schools focus more on need-based aid to account for this privilege. If your rich kid had grown up in the same shoes as one of the need-based kids, he/she wouldn’t get the same test scores or privileged education that your high-income household affords them. So how is it fair to compound on that inequality by giving them more money based on merit, when that merit was afforded to them due to their privileged lifestyle? It sucks cuz it’s not as if they chose to be born into a wealthy family. But those poor kids didn’t choose to be low-income, so you can’t possibly fault them for not being on equal footing with a high-income kid when it comes to merit. And even then, it is by no means a disadvantage to be so rich that you can’t qualify for aid. You have to remember that low income students will always have it worse, so please don’t try to compete in the pity Olympics against them when you can’t view your own privilege. You will always have more options to attend a local state school or a less expensive school, but for low income students, that option is to not attend school at all.
“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.”
But here you’re associating the price a $160,000 family has to pay versus the price a “reasonable family” would have to pay. A reasonable family does not earn $160,000 a year. Even if you paid $65,000 a year for college, you’d be left with $95,000. That is huge. Families survive on less than a 3rd of that. Why shouldn’t you be able to afford it? Certainly your other costs are higher the higher you go in income (probably have a higher mortgage than the $30,000 family that has to rent, you probably have more expensive cars to pay for, expensive cell phones and cable bills (things lower income families can’t afford or don’t buy), better (read: more expensive) health care), probably pay more for your children (private lessons, tutoring, private prep school, more expensive EC’s like competitive sports). I get it, that money goes fast. But why shouldn’t you be able to sacrifice and try to live within a reduced budget of about $95,000 then? You could still live very comfortable, much more so than those who earn less than $30,000, those who typically receive need-based aid. The fraction of rent, bills, and health care is a much larger percentage of the $30,000 family’s income. The point is, a $160,000 family can afford to cut down some of the luxuries and save. How are you possibly going to tell a middle class $30,000 family to simply budget more in order to pay for a $65,000/year school? They can’t because they don’t even make half of the tuition in one year. How do you expect them to live? They’re already living on 99 cent grocers, not purchasing luxuries like cable subscriptions or expensive $800 cellphones and expensive car payments and insurance bills. Their rent ends up eating up almost half of their income. Imagine the money a $160,000 family would save if they lived frugally or only had a mortgage or rent payment of less than $2,000 for a few years to save. If they lived like all the other $30,000/year families, the amount of money they’d save!
I very much agree with you that schools should offer both types of aid. I don’t think money should be taken out of the need-based funds though. I feel that a proper administrator who is savvy at raising funds should have no trouble securing a bit extra on the side for those merit scholarships.
And I do agree that top students should be rewarded for their efforts.We grow up going to school hearing “if you do well, if you get good grades, you can get a scholarship or a full ride and not have to worry about money.” Yet that’s not true. I think it’s a bit cruel to tout that throughout our entire schooling systems and through our culture just for it to not be true. It’s just something so ingrained in all of us I think, from a very young age. But it simply isn’t true.
