Isn’t that where one gets the maximum Pell grant? FAFSA4caster indicates that some levels of income above that can get Pell grants, but less than the maximum.
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And things would go differently for the kids I try to help if their parents had listened ten years ago (set up a 529, don’t believe the BS that you should spend every penny because the more assets you have, the less financial aid you will get, don’t quit your job to make less money for more aid). And even if they had listened FIVE years ago (spending 20K a year on a private tennis coach/camps/showcases is a dumb idea because your kid is NOT going to get athletic scholarships equal to what you’ve paid, let alone a positive ROI) !
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Bottom line, colleges are non-profit businesses, sometimes skirting investment firm levels of $$. They are not altruistic organizations; they too have to make their “investors” (alumni/state governments/private and corporate donors) happy and worry about revenue. If revenue from donations and enrollment/tuition starts to decrease, they re-evaluate how money is spent and how to increase revenue just like every other business. The upper middle income/average really good students have kept the coffers growing for decades; the push of “every student needs to go to college” was a way to increase revenue through not only increased tuition income, but application income. Social media was a godsend, adding fuel to the parental bragging fire. The goal of DM campaigns is to get the highest response rate possible; the higher the application response, the lower the admit rate and the more likelihood of increasing applications and getting students in that sweet spot of offering just enough to entice students, but not too much to lose money. If alumni or corporate donations start to drop, they’ll need to shift admission goals.
I’m guessing schools are starting to panic a bit at the moment; the boomer generation is aging, and that revenue stream is going to dry up. Gen X and millenials are less likely to donate. Add to that the start of enrollment decline, and schools are going to have to find ways to cut budgets and/or increase revenues in the coming years. It will be interesting to see how that affects admission goals.
Because in most schools athletic scholarships and budgets are separate from the academic entity; athletics has it’s own separate revenue source. If Title IX hadn’t forced the issue, colleges would likely only have a few select revenue generating sports. Academic scholarships will continue as long as they help meet the financial and academic goals of the institution and don’t affect the overall “bottom line.”
Edited to add: yes, I’m very jaded by universities and many other non-profits; years of working in direct marketing and listening to the behind the scenes does that to you 
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Sounds like you’re in the truest, most worrisome sense of Doughnut Hole. It is a very difficult place to be. 
When were categorizations based on BMI changed? Seems like it has always been 25-29.9 = “overweight”, and 30+ = “obese”. The only recent possible change that I have heard of is subtracting 2 from each threshold for Asian people.
Of course, the use of BMI as an individual (versus population) measure of obesity has all kinds of other issues, since there are plenty of people whose body fat does not match the BMI-based categorization (heavy muscular athletes at one end and those with “normal weight obesity” or “skinny fat” at the other end).
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Obviously, that is a decision made at each college. But it does look like most colleges other than at the very top of the selectivity range want to improve the academic profile of their students (which helps graduation rates, marketing, etc.), so they try to entice admits at the top end of their academic range and whom they see as being swayable with scholarship money (i.e. not ED who are already committed, and not those whose level of interest is low enough that they appear unlikely to attend in any case).
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I’m very confused by these household income thresholds people are throwing out. What is minimum wage in the rest of the country? I’m sure I could look this up… Minimum wage in California is now $15.50 per hour. That means a single income minimum wage earner is making over 32k a year, a double income minimum wage family is making over 64k a year. I’m not sure how that isn’t low income and qualifying for a pell grant.
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In order to give a frame of reference on “middle class” I’m going to quote myself from a post on a different thread (link leads to the entire post for anyone interested):
So, does EA “hurt” students from certain income levels more than others? I suspect that students from lower class and lower middle class probably qualify for free/reduced lunch and therefore can get free application vouchers for college applications. Thus, the cost of application fees is not a hindrance to them, though the amount of time necessary to do numerous applications might be a barrier (i.e. if they have to work, or take care of family responsibilities, etc).
For middle and upper middle class families, the application fees themselves may prove to be a barrier. If applications are about $75 each, then the amount in fees themselves could be substantial for these families ($375 for 5 applications, $750 for 10 applications, $1500 for 20 applications). These families may not have the means to “throw an application” out to see what kind of merit they would receive, or at least, not as easy to do (particularly in the $52-100k range).
Additionally, I usually recommend that an individual not ED to a school that they haven’t visited. But even visiting one school might be $1,000 (flight, hotel, and food for the kid and one guardian) which can be a substantial amount for families in that price range. And that’s assuming there is only one school to which they are considering ED…what would be the cost to compare multiple? So these families who might qualify for very generous financial aid at a Top X school then either have to go in blind (i.e. no visiting) or forego the ED boost.
I don’t think that “EA” is hurting applicants so much as the idea of many students applying to Top X schools are applying to 18-20 schools. Because a student will only attend one school in the end, then there are all sort of yield calculations that come into play that would not have if most students apply to a smaller number of schools since many of the schools on their list have similar pools. So, to be “safe” students have to apply to more colleges, which can be a real hardship for families in the $52-100k range.
$7.25/hour in my state, which is the federal minimum wage.
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Then it wouldn’t be merit aid.
It would be a quasi need based aid with a academic threshold
Most top 30 to 40 schools have already done away with merit or only offer a few highly competitive scholarships.
This is what is contributing to High Stat kids" especially middle to upper middle class families " that don’t qualify for need base aid but parents can’t afford sticker price so they are applying to schools say rated 50 to 150 or so in hopes of getting merit to make it affordable.
Luckily we live in Florida where tuition is under 7K a year at all 12 Public Universities and depending on stats the Bright Futures scholarships pay 75% to 100%. and parents have the option to pre pay Tuition and dorm and lock in rates staring when child is born.
OFF Topic I believe this is the main reason Florida Schools are moving up the rankings and getting harder to get into. High Stat kids that would have went OOS before can’t justify the cost and are staying instate.
For perspective this is are second go around with D23 previous S21.
We have a high EFC basically full pay and chased merit for both with OOS schools. They did not apply to any OOS ;its call it top 40 schools based on US News rankings due to lack of merit opportunities.
Disclaimer Im not a big on US News rankings but it’s a tool we all know.
We are in Florida so its hard to justify OOS tuition, but you always look for options.
S21 still ended up instate at FSU.
D23 we applied EA or rolling to 11 OOS " Nation Universities off US News List ranked from the 40’s to 130’s chasing merit" Received merit from all or under review still. We applied to 4 instate Universities.
D23 quick stats 3.7 something UW GPA 4.4 something Weighted on Florida public weighting, plus 1 point for college level courses and plus .5 for honors in core classes.
She will have around 45 or so college credits when she graduates High school with her AICE/Cambridge Diploma, between AICE/AP/DE classes.
President peer to peer mentoring group, VP Junior year
Officer NHS Junior/Senior Year.
City youth Soccer coach 3 years, not 4 yrs due to covid
Volunteer Daycare at church
Will have almost 400 hours community service hours by end of Senior year
Biology Pre Med Major… State Certified medical Assistant and EKG Tech
I have a problem that she shouldn’t be eligible for merit aid because of income as some are suggesting in this thread.
Yes she did find an OOS unicorn where tuition is just under 5000 a year after merit based on this years cost and includes Honors college acceptance This is now a top 2 choice between an instate. While we wait to hear from UF in late February. and a couple OOS schools that we are still waiting on merit.
From our experience EA worked great for S21 and D23 no real surprises. You need to do your research before applying and be realistic.
What does that mean if school considers demonstrated interest show it. Sign up for zoom calls, optional interviews, visit campus if you can etc. If app has options essays do them. If your stats are very high and worried about school deferring you, reach out to AO and explain this is one of your top choices… Don’t do the minimum on the application because you have High Stats. You are competing with students with the same stats that did extra on the app and lower stats students that may be doing a better job of saleing themself to the school.
Finally EA also takes the pressure off the kids knowing you have that college acceptance at the beginning of Senior year.
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Main issue for lower SES students is that there is less of a college-going culture in most lower SES schools, and if the parents are not college graduates, there may be little knowledge of the nuances of college applications like EA, ED, financial aid, scholarships, net price calculators, etc… In high SES schools, the express train to college applications starts early in high school…
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Yes.
Some of the passion to learn is innate, but I would lay strong odds that familial and peer pressure – to work hard academically and pursue a college education – is also a very strong influence.
And if those in the kid’s life don’t care about school/grades/studying/college, the kid is less likely to pursue them.
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But what IS “timely”?
At what point is EA no longer “early” (substantially earlier than RD)?
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Yes, EA notification before RD and/or ED2 deadlines seems reasonable…otherwise what’s the benefit of finding out ‘early’?
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Agreed. For my 3 we have considered >50% acceptance rate a “Safety”, since they are above the 75% stats-wise. We have considered the 35%-50% as “Likely”. Everything is a Reach or a High Reach. There are no “Matches” for high stats kids. The wrenches in the “Safety” plans can be OOS biases and demonstrated interest so that is something to mitigate through essays, visits, interviews, etc.
Still not sure how EA can backfire. It isn’t binding. Just do it but don’t freak out of you get Deferred to RD. There’s nothing to lose.
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I applied as an app reader to a few schools this year (most wouldn’t allow me since I have HS seniors). The schools didn’t even consider me bc I don’t “admissions office” experience. I plan to apply to dozens next year-- I have a M.S., 25 years professional experience, and will have just been through the admissions process three times. So schools can’t say they can’t FIND app readers. We are out there!
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Those jobs are super competitive to get, especially surprising as the pay stinks. Many schools do prefer ex-admissions peeps and/or alum.
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I am sure they are, but if they can’t get through their apps in a timely manner maybe they should hire some more readers-- there’s no shortage. That’s all I’m saying.
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Techno- I know many folks who moonlight as readers. The golden ticket seems to be a current grad student; next down is an alum. The colleges in my area do NOT lack for readers- these are highly coveted, seasonal jobs. What college claims they can’t hire readers??? My neighbors who do it complain they don’t get enough hours as it is! (They LOVE the work btw…)
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many schools are pushing out decision dates beyond previous years b/c they can’t get through the deluge of apps. They are not specifically saying they can’t hire app readers, but obviously hiring more readers would enable them to process more apps faster.
Should I even bother applying? They never say they prefer grad students or alums in the job postings but I know how the world works.
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Are schools pushing out deadlines because of not getting through applications or because they haven’t gotten enough of them this cycle and want to boost numbers?
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