<p>i’m receiving state-funded financial aid to supplement my loans for college, and thankfully it covers my tuition. I can guarantee you my parents didn’t lavish me, or themselves with new cars, gadgets, and whatever else you may think. There are 8 people in my family, 5 of whom can drive. and of those who can drive, none of us have a car younger than 10 years old.</p>
<p>financial aid is not a bad thing.</p>
<p>In many (I daren’t say most) cases, I think so. But in certain cases no. For example, my father has not contributed to my well-being in about 10 years, I didn’t even know where he was. But colleges wouldn’t give me aid until I tracked him down and then they factored his income into my FAFSA even though he won’t be contributing. That’s certainly not fair, but it’s life and I’ve learned to expect no better than the worst.</p>
<p>Well I’m applying ED at Northwestern which guarantees to meet all demonstrated need. Besides that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. I’m kinda banking on my EFC going down after this year. Michigan is the only iffy one for that because as an OOS student I don’t know how their aid is. Wisconsin has a reciprocity agreement with MN (my home state) which allows me to go there at in state costs so Wisconsin and Minnesota aren’t really a problem. It’s just frustrating that I won’t be getting anything this year even when my family needs to cut back.</p>
<p>I have always been against the financial aid for most people;however, admittedly, I am in the small minority of people who feel this way.</p>
<p>I find it absolutetly ludicrus that a hard working person who is frugal and saves his/her money for their kids college gets much less aid than a spendthrift parent. Moreover, if the kid works their butt off to save for college all of their life with summer jobs, this is held against them when aid is determined. No question, this is idiotic.</p>
<p>I also think that easy financial aid has runed too many lives. Too many people find this “free money” as too enticing and don’t know how to limited themselves. Moreover, easy financial aid encourages the tremendous college tuition increases that we have been seeing over the last few decades.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think we as a nation need to get over the fact that not every snowflake can and should be able to attend every private school. This is idiotic.</p>
<p>If I had my way, we would do away with financial aid…period. If families can’t afford to pay cash for the tuition, the kids should attend much cheaper alternatives such as community colleges,which should have some form of aid built in.</p>
<p>Most CCs are very reasonably priced. In fact, most kids can earn enough money part time and through summer jobs to pay for most of the community college costs.</p>
<p>I do understand that I am advocating a harsh , tough life for some people. However, it is due to the financial reality that scarcity exists and we just can’t continue to subsidize everyone. Moreover, less affluent folks need to start making tough economic choices.</p>
<p>^much of what you say is true, but the PC crowd will not agree. Kids who work their buts off having real summer jobs do get penalized…and kids who do the volunteer work to look better for admissions expect more aid? sorry, that is wrong…kids should be earning money over the summer.</p>
<p>
It’s easy enough to pontificate on the abstract. I would like to put up a specific case (my own) and maybe you can tell me in exactly what way it was all so unfair. First of all I was raised in severe poverty by a widowed mother and grandmother and didn’t go to college right out of high school. I went to work, moved out on my own, and began supporting myself. </p>
<p>After a year, I began attending night school at the CC part time. That continued off and on for 5 years, during which time I saved nearly $20K, was married, divorced, earned 60 credits, and lost my remaining parent and grandparent. I finally enrolled full time at the CC, at which point I still had 1-1/2 years to go for an AAS (yeah, really). I paid for that part myself. </p>
<p>After that, I transferred to a State U in order to finish a BS. I lived on my savings, and got TAP and PELL and one small loan. I needed summer courses, so I didn’t really work for that nearly 2 years. Ten years out of HS, I finally graduated summa cum laude and got a decent job. </p>
<p>Fire away.</p>
<p>
CC’s DO have some form of aid built in. They are massively subsidized by the taxpayers of their state. A lot of this whining about “unfairness” seems to be predicated upon ignorance about how this all actually works. People like this are the reason the system, however poorly it may function, exists in the first place. The previous non-system was worse.</p>
<p>xeniamom, I congratulate you on overcoming your problems. You certainly showed that anyone can achieve a college education if they are determined enough without having to resort to lots of aid.</p>
<p>I’m more of a “bird in the hand” type of person, rather than a “two in the bush” kind of gal. I’d rather save for college and know the money is there rather than spend all my money in the hopes of getting a good financial package. Having money gives you options when it comes to college choices.</p>
<p>we just can’t continue to subsidize everyone.</p>
<p>Taxguy…you’re mixing up federal aid with institutional aid. When a school gives its own aid, then “we” aren’t subsidizing anyone.</p>
<p>What you may be advocating is an end to federal aid. I would not want student loans to go away because some kids couldn’t even go to their local state school to get their BA/BS. CCs are fine for the first 2 years, but they don’t give bachelors, so at some point kids need to go to a university.</p>
<p>If totally free federal money were to go away, then student loan amounts would need to increase perhaps with super low interest rates. </p>
<p>Another alternative could be to have an option where the frosh/soph loan amounts could be lower (to pay CC costs) and then the junior and senior year loan amounts could be doubled. Then CC students could more easily transfer without ending up with too much debt in the end.</p>
<p>
I hate the financial aid threads for this exact reason. It’s always assumed that the frugal get screwed and the only people who need financial aid blow their money on fancy vacations, cavier, luxury cars, etc.
You never remember the people who have worked JUST AS HARD AS YOU, maybe make as much money as you did, but have hit much harder times than you have. What about illness in a family? Loss of a home? All of those things can make a family need aid, more so than just being “spendthrift”</p>
<p>I come from a family where my mom and dad both work VERY hard. They carry no debt other than the house and my father’s hospital bills. There has been no possible way for them to save for college. They’ve been frugal but the extra inevitably goes to some kind of emergency. I’ve been working since I was 14, and couldn’t save as much as I’d like because I had things i HAD to pay for, like new clothes, college applications, and even groceries when money got tight. </p>
<p>Don’t make the assumption that every who needs finaid just blows their money. It’s more insulting than you’d ever know</p>
<p>My institution (Smith) chooses to be generous because they realize ability to pay shouldn’t be the sole determinant of the education you get. They want the best class, not just those with money.</p>
<p>You never know why a parent may be home. The parent may have a special needs child, be ill, or caring for an elderly parent/sibling.</p>
<p>As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I went back to work over the protests of my doctor in order to help pay for college. We could have taken our chances with FA, but there was no guaranteed we’d get grants instead of loans as our FA package. Yes, my income increases our EFC, but it it also means we can pay more of our EFC in cash vs. borrowing.</p>
<p>We’ve had no financial or other help from parents or grandparents EVER. What we have, we’ve done ourselves. We were paying DH’s student loans until the kids were well into elem school. There are other folks with kids in college who are STILL paying off professional school loans.</p>
<p>One thing I have taken to heart since getting ill is this: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. – Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, a first century Jewish philosopher</p>
<p>I don’t know how you spend your money or what your familiy’s priorities are – and it’s not my business. What I see from the outside may not be your reality.</p>
<p>I’m alittle bit with taxguy. I think the Stafford loans are OK as everyone can take them out but all this tuition discounting for income earning families which is really what the vast majority of “scholarships” is thinly veiled. And I do think that a two income family is “penalized” compared to a single earner to some degree with the way that financial aid is calculated. To be “subsizing” families with incomes in the six figures is very hard to swallow and while not comparable in the truest sense of the world “sounds” like jumbo loans and supersizing of college educations. I think the kids are being duped alittle. Many honestly believe that they will receive a better education if the “published cost” for it is higher and that just simply isn’t true. There are weak private colleges and weak public colleges. There are strong private colleges and strong public institutions. I think you have to look long and hard at a private college that discounts its tuition down to the equivalent of a state college…perhaps that is because the value of that degree really isn’t all that different? So who is kidding who?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So in your opinion professions in the fields of medicine, law, business, etc. should only be held to the rich or moderately wealthy? Certainly no poor family could afford to spend the kind of money it would take to become a doctor on their child, all the part-time and summer jobs in the world could barely help make a dent in the tuition of college and graduate school. So all poor people should get a second-rate education
at an underfunded community college with hundreds of kids in each class, so they can get a near worthless degree to continue being poor and letting the cycle continue? That sounds fair.</p>
<p>I believe if you’ve worked hard enough to get into a top university that has a hefty price tag, you deserve all the aid you’re getting. Much of the need-based aid comes from the school itself, not from federal loans so you’re not paying anything.</p>
<p>^ agreed…</p>
<p>I think the system is pretty hard on middle class people that are barely above the income level that qualifies for aid. My middle class family has only one parent working, and I don’t receive a penny of aid. So off to community college I went. </p>
<p>I have worked every summer and saved up enough money that I will be able to afford the cheapest college path, which was community college and the nearest local state college with maybe 10k in loans. I recieved half the tuition in merit. I gave up my dream schools that I got into, because even with the large scholarships, I don’t want to take out 15-20k in loans for each year. </p>
<p>It kinda feels unfair that my poorer friends have almost full rides to private schools or community college just on financial aid, and none of them work or take college seriously.</p>
<p>
And yet, I did have some of that aid that you would prefer to see eliminated. Without it, it probably would have taken another year or two to finish, if it were possible at all. My point is that it is easy to say “oh yeah, no one should get any help”. But if you were faced with deciding each case, you might say “ok, you get a little. And rocketlouise. And you over there. Maybe not you in the pink…” It wouldn’t be so cut and dried. Reality never is.</p>
<p>jasonleb1 - I attended a cc. I never had a class with more than 30 students. At the local State U, intro courses often have upwards of 100, with the largest courses being over 400. Community colleges have a place, and are not necessarily “second-rate”.</p>
<p>^ what about the people who do take it seriously(like me) who’s parents don’t have money?</p>
<p>I believe that this is a debate that will never get settled. Many of you already know my views on the system, and as I expected, there are a good deal of you who disagree with me. There are also some of you out there who happen to share my point of view, which I feel is great.</p>
<p>However, I have realized that anyone who gets sufficient financial aid is going to praise the system, for all it’s flaws. To them, the system works for them, so it must be just. On the other hand, there are also many who happen to get left out of the financial aid system, and we happen to feel that it is flawed. This point of view is also legitimate, and regardless of the others say, we will continue to believe that we are in the right.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that it’s a waste of time to continuously debate the system. It’s become apparent that people who get money will always be happy and people who don’t will feel slighted. It’s a normal part of human emotions, and no matter how much bickering happens on an internet message board, it will continue to be the case. It is just as impossible for me to convince many of you, just as it is for many of you to convince people with my view. It’s life, and people should just deal with it.</p>
<p>Again, generalizations. Believe it or not, there are some of us who don’t get the big aid who don’t complain. My D has incredible aid at her private school. My S has no need based aid at his state school (which has a COA of $21k/year). Therefore, I am one who actually lives both sides of the coin. I am extremely grateful for D’s financial aid. I am not upset or jealous over S’s lack of financial aid. My H and I don’t earn anywhere near what your parents earn, but we are well aware of the fact that we earn more than most. At less than half your parents’ income, we are NOT middle class … we are in the top group of U.S. wage earners. We have lived our lives in such a way that we can pay for our kids’ college costs. It is a choice we made long ago, and we were fortunate that costly illness or something similar did not derail our plans. We never expected anyone to pay for our kids if we “could” … and we can. </p>
<p>I firmly believe in need based aid, and I wish our federal aid programs could help more students than they do. I see so many families just above the Pell cut-off who do not earn enough to pay what they have to pay for even a low cost state U. I feel so bad for families who do not live within commuting distance of a CC - or do not have the means to commute to the school even if they are within commuting distance. Private schools can do whatever they want with their money - I have no issues with that concept. By and large, these schools are able to help more students in the middle than public schools can help (but it is harder to get into these schools).</p>
<p>Today of all days, give pause … think about what you have compared to so many others. Truly consider your blessings and be thankful.</p>