Is Cornell really the worst for financial aid?!

<p>I just checked out the financial aid forums and it seems that Cornell is constantly bashed as being really bad for financial aid and the worst of the ivy's. Is this true?</p>

<p>Cornell is need blind for admissions and meets 100% of need ... both of which are good ... and quite rare. But I believe Cornell's packages tend to have more loans than a lot of packages from other schools that provide for 100% of need. So among the IVYies, I believe that Cornell's package often would not be the best (more loans) ... but would be very competative compared to the lion's share of other colleges out there.</p>

<p>beats most mother private colleges...</p>

<p>compared to the ivies, id say its the worst lol</p>

<p>but did the OP get into the other ivies!?! Ha!</p>

<p>Doesn't Cornell give out like loans of $10,000 or something?</p>

<p>Cornell's endowment is pretty low, so I guess that explains it.</p>

<p>Cornell's endowment is small, but it's really amazing how many students/staff that supports!!! o_O</p>

<p>^ Ya. Does Cornell not pester its Alumni or something?</p>

<p>Can someone clarify the $10,000 loans thing?</p>

<p>It actually has a large endowment but just not per capita since it has the most students in the Ivy League. They are doing this giant growth project of billions of dollars currently tho. U'll get a whole lotta money if you need it so I wouldn't worry. The loans can be pesky for some people tho. What's the harm in applying and seeing what happens?</p>

<p>I remember when I went to visit Cornell an admissions officer was delighted to inform us of the large endowment Cornell has. I'm pretty surprised to hear people say that Cornell has a small endowment.</p>

<p>it has a small endowment for the number of students it has...compared to the other ivies...</p>

<p>though i dont know about others, but cornell research pwns Y__Y</p>

<p>yea, you're definitely right about that fd36. but, i point out that cornell has an endowment of $5.13 billion. that's over $250,000 per student. yes, it certainly is not comparable to the endowment per student at the other ivies (brown being the closest, i think, with between 300K-350K per student. while cornell's endowment might not be the same as the other ivies, i do not think its fair to call it "small."</p>

<p>also, the endowment per student is tricky. for, much of a university's total endowment is not tied to the students per se, but is rather is directed to other things like endowed professorships, etc.</p>

<p>my DS is now a soph. and had good fin aid last year ED. and even tho our income rose quite a bit this year we had the same EFC and much less than 10,000. in loans each year and we would be considered i guess middle to upper middle class.</p>

<p>i forgot to add that we don't really have anything to compare it to but after hearing basically the same thing about poor fin aid--we didn't expect as generous as we received.</p>

<p>Well, if you are "poor enough"! You will have all your need met and you will definitely get way more grants than loans...maybe 3000 loans per year!</p>

<p>When it comes to the mostly 100% needs-blind policy of all the Ivy league schools, the term "worst" doesn't really mean much anymore.</p>

<p>Lots of loans.. So easiest among ivies to get in..</p>

<p>I will confirm that my D's package definitely had a bit more than $10,000 in loans in her package. If you add the work study component to the loan amount it was about equal to our EFC. We did not think that was a favorable package at all. She is not attending.</p>

<p>bluejay, if you don't mind my asking, what income bracket are you in?</p>

<p>Maybe this will help.</p>

<p>EFC: $16,880</p>

<p>Grant/NYS Tap: $3731</p>

<p>Workstudy: $1800</p>

<p>Loans: $10,330</p>

<p>I guess it shouldn't have been such a surprise. I went back and reviewed some family packages that were highlighted in one of the brochures and as I recall there was a family with an income of around $40,000 that also had in the neighborhood of $10,000 in loans. Now that family and ours do not make a statistical sampling but in these 2 cases family income did not play much of role. I can tell you that our income is about 2x that. Cornell's EFC was about $2000 more than the FAFSA EFC.</p>