Is Financial Aid fair?

Paying for College
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<p>There are 2 elements to COA – one is the educational cost (books, tuition, other fees assessed) – the other is the living expenses (housing, food). </p>

<p>My son graduated from a lower cost state university – not the flagship – and paid all costs on his own, emerging debt free. Actually he had a small amount of debt, but he paid it all of immediately because along the way he worked for Americorps, and he used his Americorps educational benefit to pay the loan. </p>

<p>One important piece of the puzzle is that he worked half time when he returned to school, and his income – even at minimum wage – was enough to pay his housing costs (room in shared off campus apartment, food), or close to enough. </p>

<p>I think that its a mistake when students are borrowing for the housing/food part of COA, as opposed to the tuition part. I do think that most students should be able to earn enough to pay that --back when I was in school, I also knew many students who were able to find cheap living accommodations through some combination of work/rent – such as doing some maintenance work on premises, taking a live-in babysitting position, working as apartment managers, house-sitting for profs on sabbatical, etc. </p>

<p>I think students may feel they need to borrow because they take the college’s estimated COA as gospel - if the university says that room & board will cost $15,000 for the year, then it must be so. If the student is eligible for financial aid, then there is a downside to working, especially if the student is still classified as a “dependent” – they are assessed a huge chunk of both their earnings and savings, and whatever they have managed to save in the year before they started or returned to school is double-counted against them, first as earnings, and then as savings. But for a student who is not getting financial aid because of the high EFC of parents who can’t or won’t contribute – then student earnings can provide a big chunk of the costs. </p>

<p>Anyway – I’m not trying to criticize anyone else’s choice, just pointing out that even a self-supporting student shouldn’t need to finance the “entire” COA with loans.</p>

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<p>The problem with comparing US statistics with other countries is the inclusiveness of our educational system. All students go to the same high schools, take the same tests. This does not happen in many other countries. Only those academically able, who meet certain criteria, go to “college prep” educational institutions. The less able are sent to vocational type schools. The comparisons are apples and oranges.</p>

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<p>^If you’re referring to my world rank cited a few pages ago, that is based on HS standardized testing, not college. ACT recently issued some statistical info about the US lagging behind as well, according to its own criteria, plus the issue has been widely discussed (for example, see The Herman Trend analysis).
While it is true that some countries stream students early (eg. in Canada you take u level courses or regular courses) they also apply standardized testing across the entire student body (see Canada reference). So I’m not convinced that we’re actually comparing apples and oranges per se, but I’d be interested and reading further on that if you can refer me to the source of your opinion.</p>

<p>Eg. Using Canada as an example, which has only public institutions that teach ALL students from ALL walks of life and tests them ALL, how can Canada rank 3rd with the U.S. 33rd, so much further behind? Our educational structures are identical, as are our average expenditures per student. There’s really no explaining that gap. At least easily.</p>

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<p>It really depends on the country. Some countries are streaming students into vocational as opposed to academic tracks based on testing or performance as early as age 7, and its fairly common that students are tracked by age 12 or so. Many countries do not have mandatory school attendance after a certain level, such as 8th grade.</p>

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<p>*I think that its a mistake when students are borrowing for the housing/food part of COA, as opposed to the tuition part. I do think that most students should be able to earn enough to pay that --back when I was in school, I also knew many students who were able to find cheap living accommodations through some combination of work/rent – such as doing some maintenance work on premises, taking a live-in babysitting position, working as apartment managers, house-sitting for profs on sabbatical, etc.</p>

<p>I think students may feel they need to borrow because they take the college’s estimated COA as gospel - if the university says that room & board will cost $15,000 for the year, then it must be so. *</p>

<p>Very, very true!!! </p>

<p>Just because this person’s flagship has a COA of $25k doesn’t mean that it really needs to cost that much to go there. And that usually includes on campus room and board costs which can be much less when living off campus.</p>

<p>My younger son is moving off campus next year and it will be a LOT less money.</p>

<p>I hate to see kids borrow for room and board (especially board). Yes, with a summer job and a part-time job during the school year, a kid can earn a good bit of money. I think the first $4500 doesn’t affect EFC…and if any of it is from work-study, that doesn’t count towards EFC either.</p>

<p>Of course, kids with super high EFCs don’t have to worry that a job will hurt their EFCs anyway.</p>

<p>My H borrowed student loans for (OMG) dating money (seriously!!). Instead of working, he took the easy way with a loan. Do you know how annoying that was to pay that back???</p>

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<p>Useless question. Nothing in life is ever “fair”. A better question would be does it increase the economic welfare of the nation? I would say no. FA encourages people to disregard costs when making decisions. That’s always bad. A poor family should send their children to cheap community colleges. Their quality of education is not that bad compared to average state schools. They use the same textbooks and online tutorials. </p>

<p>Suppose the poor can now pick their car for free. They would of course get the most expensive ones. Sure a BMW is better than a Toyota, but do they really need one? </p>

<p>A better solution would be to given the poor $20,000 dollars (just an example) regardless of the student’s institution. Some might choose to add some more money to send their kids to better schools, some might choose to go to CCs to save money. But that’s up to them and there’s no exogenous incentive for them to pick the most expensive colleges.</p>

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<p>Re: borrowing for room and board – I think that depends largely on the city/location of the college. My son just went through an off-campus search and truthfully the rental market is so inflated in Ann Arbor that the tradeoffs in his case wouldn’t have been worth it. Coop was an interesting option, but since his degree is time and rehearsal intensive, he didn’t feel he could keep working and contribute to the coop.</p>

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<p>This makes no sense…federal, and often state, aid is the same amount per year whether the student is going to a public or private school or a 2-year or 4-year school. Why wouldn’t a low-income student who is qualified to attend a university strive to get the best education possible…wouldn’t that give the taxpayers and the student more “bang for the buck”? Are you suggesting that someone with an AAS is qualified for the same job as someone with a BS? </p>

<p>I don’t know where you live that the community colleges offer the same rigor as the public schools, but that is not universally true. My D attends a flagship but has taken 5 gen-ed/humanities classes through our SUNY CC (which is usually regarded as one of the better ones). It’s cheap and convenient, but the depth and rigor is certainly not comparable to her home school. Her CC instructors often bypass the required research component, which never happens at her U. The CC instructors do not use the same course materials (the univ profs often incorporate more technology, invite guest lecturers, and/or use books and articles they have written on the subject), and frequently give extra credit and curve grades which is also a rarity at the 4-year school. The CC’s also do not offer the same opportunities for scholarships, internships, co-ops, and research that the state universities do. I’m a fan of CC’s but do not agree they’re for everyone or that the “nation” is better served by sending every low-income kid there.</p>

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First of all, you’re Canadian, and the government funds most if not all of your colleges heavily. In fact, it’s cheaper for Americans to attend a Canadian school as internationals than it is to attend many of our own universities. Secondly, you really are not going to find massive amounts of poor people populating the most expensive American universities. More students go to cc than anyplace else. Third, American community colleges are 2 year schools. What do your “poor families” do for the kids who want 4 year degrees?</p>

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<p>^If Nicole12 is Canadian she should also be aware that there is a significant difference in rigor, research and depth between Canada’s community colleges and Canadian universities, which is why you have to take 12u courses for university but not for college. The second odd sense from the comment is that no right-thinking Canadian with a bright kid would send said kid to a cheap community college because between the Federal and Provincial loan programs, more than $11,000 a year is available with at least $4,000 in grant relief (no paying back, and payback on the loan portion is at 3.5%), leaving only a modest few thousandthat most students have to self-fund through work, savings, etc.</p>

<p>I just wish our FA here were structured in a similar way (eg. 3.5% interest instead of 7.5%; 40% grant etc.), and that our schools were as affordable (some state schools are comparable, some are not).</p>

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<p>km, as you say, it completely depends on the state and school. Looking at my D’s bill from UB (which is currently the most comprehensive and expensive public in the state) it looks like billable charges for a full-time student with a health insurance waiver amount to $8125 per semester (this includes a triple room and a 160/semester meal plan with $450 in flex spending). Our max state grant aid is about $2450/semester and max Pell is $2775…that alone would cover 64% of the billable cost for a low-income kid. Add FSEOG, institutional grant aid, and work study to the mix and it’s unlikely the student would need to take (or perhaps even be able to take) more than just subsidized Perkins/Stafford loans since total COA is only $10,260/semester. If the kid applied to one of the formal programs designed especially for low-income kids, it’s unlikely they would really need the subsidized loans they qualify for since those often programs give additional grants for computers, books, etc. The Stafford subsidized rate is pretty good…it was 5.6% last year, (I think) around 4.5% this year, and going down to around 3.4 or .6 for next year.</p>

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<p>^Does UB = UC Berkley? -Sounds like it based on grant amount, and Yes, I hope kids in California appreciate how comparatively terrific their state has been about education in the past despite the current tuition increases. With the Cal grant plus the pell grant plus federal loans, plus the comparatively well-controlled tuition costs (eg. not all the funding has been ripped away from the UC system;) it can be very comparable to Canada. My son’s hoping to do his MFA there and was pleasantly surprised at tuition ;)</p>

<p>In our case (we’re permanent residents in Michigan) we were just ecstatic that we qualified for instate at UMich and that McSon won scholarships. But before we knew about that stroke of luck/merit, we ran the numbers on Cdn schools and loan programs to which son had applied – and the difference was quite astonishing. </p>

<p>Michigan the school is pretty generous with in-state students due to its endowment. Michigan the State offers next to nothing anymore – it’s even clawed back the MCAT for high performing students, taken away the Promise grant, etc.
So it really is a mixed bag.
Glad to hear the Stafford is going down.</p>

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<p>I think UB is Buffalo. Berkeley is UCB.</p>

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<p>Yes, I’m in NY so UB is University at Buffalo. Soooo glad not to have big tuition increases…we have one every 7-8 years, usually 10-15%, and there’s plenty of complaining and marching on Albany when that happens! Students and the SUNYs have actually requested annual increases in an effort to avoid the big surprises, but the legislature is very resistant. I think the grad rates and OOS rates increased slightly this year but undergrad tuition is still under $5K a year and NYS aid only decreased $100 or so per kid…fingers crossed that it can survive at least a few more years!</p>

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<p>I have read the entire thread and know there will never be concensus on this subject. If you are one of the fortunate who receive aid then you will obviously think the system works. If you are in the other camp, then the flaws are will be glaring as you try to figure out how to pay for college. </p>

<p>I do agree that aid is needed for many students to attend school. I teach high school Social Studies and have seen the positive effects that aid has given many of my former students. Doors are open to them at large universities that otherwise would not be. I have students who continue to email me to thank me for the letters of recommendation that I wrote for them. Just knowing that I played a small role in their admission gives me great joy. It gives me an immense feeling of pride when I hear that they are traveling to places like Beijing, Tokyo, Paris, and Athens to study abroad. These students worked their butts off and they deserve these opportunities. </p>

<p>Having said this, I still think the process is flawed. I have two sons who are in their Junior and Senior year in high school. My oldest son will graduate either #1 or #2 in his class. He works his ____ off. I have read where some people think that it takes brilliance but often it takes more hard work than anything else to achieve high grades. He is a National Merit Scholar, scored a 34 on his ACT, etc., etc… However, because my wife and I earn good incomes, his offers so far have been discouraging. He would like to attend a top tier engineering school and while many have sent letters, I am sure that he will not receive the aid that others will receive based on our income. </p>

<p>You may argue that we should have savings or have enough income to pay for his tuition. Well, everyone has their own story and let me just say that I put myself through night school and graduated 5 years ago. I NOW have a good income as a teacher and my wife is also a teacher. It took hard work to get where we’re at and we have worked hard to pay off debt so we can help with both of my sons’ eduaction. I’m not crying but wonder sometimes… if I had just waited a few years, they would have everything paid for them ( younger son also ranked top of his class). Instead, my wife and I will probably have a high EFC because of our income. Oh well, such is life.</p>

<p>Last year at my son’s school, the Valedictorian had decent income… mom a teacher and dad a travel agent (probable income of $80 -$85k). He received some scholarships and chose A&M University. They still have to pay over half the tuition for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year. The Salutatorian was low income and recieved full ride scholarship offers to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Brown, and countless others. All worth around $200K or better. Both had similar EC’s. Is this fair? There is no way that it is but that’s the system. </p>

<p>V thinks the system sucks and S thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. While I will appreciate any scholarship my son receives, we are already being told that he does not qualify for most since they are need based. So be thankful if you are one of the fortunate but try to understand that just because you have a decent income, that it doesn’t make you “rich” as some have put it.</p>

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<p>Not sure where you’re getting this:

Financial Aid awarded by the federal gov’t is not enough to attend a 4 year school. The schools you use in your example are different. The SCHOOL is paying for that aid. Why didn’t the Val apply to Stanford/Harvard/Yale/Brown? If he had gotten in he also would have paid nothing at H and Y. It’s fair because the Sal applied and was accepted.</p>

<p>As far as your children, have them look at schools that will offer merit aid. If he is Val/Sal and has a 34 ACT there are some very good schools that will offer scholarships. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And just to give you my context, my DDs both went to schools that awarded merit aid because we would have been full pay at top schools.</p>

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<p>We never really know what’s going on in these families–how much money people really earn, or what other financial resources or commitments they have. It might be that the unfairness was in admissions, not financial aid. With a household income of $85k and assuming typical assets, Stanford, Harvard and Yale would offer very generous financial aid. If the val wasn’t admitted to these schools, then he wouldn’t get to take advantage of a big aid package.</p>

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<p>Maybe, maybe not. Admissions to schools that meet full need is often like buying a lottery ticket, even when as highly qualified as your children are. If your kids end up being accepted to schools that don’t meet need, then they’re better off because you have a higher income. </p>

<p>Your older son, by virtue of being NMSF, should be able to get a full ride. His stats will get him generous merit-based aid at many schools. I see he’s interested in U Maryland–he’s a contender for aid there, especially if he applied by the Nov 1 early deadline. Caltech can be generous with aid, ditto for Stanford, but both are reaches for everyone.</p>

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<p>When you bring a child into this world, you know you have 18 years to figure out how to pay for college. There are many savings and investment vehicles designed for that purpose, and some have significant tax benefits as well. There is also a ton of information out there. Most colleges are fairly transparent about what aid is available, and to whom. I’m constantly amazed at the number of people who do nothing until the kid is starting to apply, then are surprised that college is expensive and they are expected to pay for their child’s education.<br>
My son is a senior who is currently applying to college. What I have learned over the past 18 years is that (1) if you make more than about $40K, you are not going to be offered any need-based aid from a public institution; (2) some private schools offer aid (translation: huge parent loans, mostly) to familes earning up to $150,000, but those schools cost upward of $45K per year, and the parent contribution is still quite high in many cases; (3) elite college and universities basically do not give merit-based aid; think about it: everyone at those places is an excellent candidate; and (4) merit-based scholarships do exist at some colleges, but they are rare and getting rarer each year, and the competition is beyond fierce. For example, UT-Austin last year decided to stop offering merit scholarships to National Merit Scholars (they were only giving a whopping $4K per year anyhow). The alumni association tried to step up, and funded 10 full scholarships; it was recommended that applicants be NMSs, have an CR/M SAT of at least 1400, and be in the top 5% of their class. I heard that, as of early September, there had already been 1,000 applications filed for those 10 scholarships–and the deadline wasn’t until 12/1. Last night, the application website crashed because so many people were trying to submit the application. Obviously, the 10 winners are going to have credentials way beyond those of the average student, and rightly so.</p>

<p>Anyway, the point is, there are a lot of options out there for getting a good education without either the parents or the child going into a ton of debt they’ll be saddled with for decades. I think honesty is the best policy. My husband and I are both graduates of elite private universities; however, although we have saved and planned for years, we simply cannot afford to send our kids to a private university. We have been up front about that all along, and our kids are happily looking forward to attending a public university and graduating with no student loan debt.</p>

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<p>Sal did apply to Stanford/Yale etc but they did not offer enough merit aid to make it worth his while. They offered plenty of loans but not enough scholarships. Sal got everything paid with scholarships. Still doesn’t seem quite fair to me. I knew the Sal and am glad he got the help he did… he is a fine young man… but the Val is equally as deserving and it doesn’t seem that the package he was offered was fair considering his merit. Just my opinion though.</p>

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<p>Was it fair that the Salutatorian had to live with less at home for all those years because he had the misfortune of having the wrong set of parents, while the Val’s parents could afford to buy him nicer clothes, live in a nicer home… and (given that one was a travel agent) probably take him traveling to all sorts of nice resorts and travel destinations over the years. </p>

<p>I just can’t understand why people who have so much MORE in every other aspect of life suddenly start groaning about “fairness” when they see someone getting some sort of benefit, precisely because they have LESS. I think some people confuse “fair” with “maintaining the status quo” – as in, they think the natural order of things is for poor people to have less and suffer more, and get upset when private colleges or government programs step in to level the playing field a little bit.</p>

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<p>Stanford & Yale don’t offer merit aid. All of the Ivies offer need based only. </p>

<p>That being said, the Val had plenty of opportunities to apply to private schools that DO offer merit aid, and if he had a reasonable chance of getting into Stanford or Yale, then there are dozens of excellent colleges where he could have received a full-ride merit scholarship. Full-ride merit is BETTER than need-based aid, because it has no self-help component (e.g. loans).</p>