<p>(For the elite schools) As long as the demand is so great then colleges can overcharge. Also, as long as the colleges keep whipping kids into a holistic frenzy then demand will be great. Wait a minute! No, they would never do that, would they?</p>
<p>I very much doubt that the revenue side of their accounting is separated from their financial aid accounting,</p>
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<p>Financial aid information - that is, information about things that have no bearing on aid the actual disbursement of aid - is not shared with anyone who does not have a legitimate need to know. Frankly, universities are far too busy trying to run the place to sit around reading students’ FAFSA’s with the intent to figure out just how much scr**ing they think the market will bear.</p>
<p>For those that are full pay based on FAFSA, what were your bottom line costs to attend compared to your instate public?</p>
<p>I bet it was, oh hmm say the difference between a student loan and instate tuition? Throw in 5-10K merit and their is your FA package. It played out this way for us in 2008 and again in 2013. If your kid is in the middle of the acceptance ranges, those are your figures, well above the range, you will be about 5K below your instate tuition. </p>
<p>There is enough financial data floating around as to what the market will bear.</p>
<p>In fact, the surveys they send out asking why you did not choose particular school, the questions are quite interesting as far as income and a tremendous amount of data could be mined just from those. Why is my zip code important as to why my child declined a particular school? I know they aren’t asking for the purpose as where to spend their advertising dollars. These schools get more than enough from our area as far as applicants without spending a dime on a brochure.</p>
<p>Our kids had merit scholarships…one more than the other. Believe me when I say…our out of pocket expenses were at,least TWICE the full cost of attending the instate public…schools were in the $50k range.</p>
<p>I’m still chuckling from the “class action lawsuit” comment.</p>
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<p>Your formula doesn’t work for our family. EFC $63K/year. In state public COA $11k/year. Private school COA varied from $0K/year to $42k/year.</p>
<p>By the way…we would have LOVED to use that Sam’s formula…would have saved us a ton of money!</p>