In your opinion, how good is BU at meeting financial needs?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston University
1

<p>Just a simple opinion based question. I was really pleased with what I saw when I visited BU in the spring of last year, but obviously the price tag is a bit extreme, so I’m wondering what the general financial situation looks like that they leave you with.</p>

2

<p>BU is fairly transparent in how they award financial aid. If you are an applicant that they would like to attract, your award will reflect this. Read this article about Boston University’s Office of Financial Assistance, very illuminating.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>Yes - that article reflects my 2010 son’s award package. He was accepted, but must not have been a student that they really wanted. We had an EFC of $6,000-9,000 (can’t remember), and they awarded him $28,000 in need based grants, leaving them the second highest out-of-pocket cost ($28,000) on my son’s list of acceptances. (Interestingly, they were second only to Northeastern, also in Boston).</p>

<p>They can come up with any system they want - that’s fine - but I don’t understand why they don’t care about their yield at all. They even say it in the article - they accept kids that they are pretty sure won’t come due to cost. What’s the point? I guess it felt better to my son to be accepted rather than rejected, but the end result is the same.</p>

4

<p>I have often wondered that also. The reason that their acceptance rate is so high is that their yield is so low. And yield is low because cost is so high. I wonder what would happen if they accepted less students and offered better aid packages to those they accept? Maybe their yield would go up, as well as their ranking. But what do I know anyway…</p>

5

<p>Accepting less students won’t get them anymore money though. They have their yield percentages calculated into their financial aid, so even if they were to accept less students, they wouldn’t be able to award any more aid then they usually do, unless they actually got more money to give out.</p>

<p>Hopefully, seeing as they stated they would try to aim for a smaller class size for the class of 2015, they will be able to be more generous with financial aid.</p>