<p>What is your take on the "High Tuition, High Aid" way of pricing PUBLIC SCHOOLS like U of Michigan Ann Harbor and U of Miami Ohio. I recently read a study that says that it is not a viable way of funding public schools but doesn't it make sense to give aid to those who need it the most and charge students who can afford to pay?</p>
<p>Are you asking if it’s right for publics (like UCs) to raise their prices just so a portion of the increase can go towards FA for lower income students?</p>
<p>IMO, yes that’s wrong.</p>
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Never heard of Robin Hood before?</p>
<p>That model is partially dependent upon a high percentage of international students who are willing to pay full price without any aid from the university.</p>
<p>Robin Hood was stealing from the tax collector and rebating people’s own money. </p>
<p>Poor people don’t pay much in taxes so what they get from Robin Hood is a grant, not a rebate.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you are asking? Is it OK for state public universities to charge more to people that don’t live in the state? I guess my answer is “yes.” Michigan happens to meet need, albeit from Profile, for instate kids. The “state” funds a small percentage of the total budget but until the concept of “state” universities collapses I personally don’t have a problem with the universities propping up their own state students, which they do if they don’t receive a significant amount of their operating budget from state coffers, at the expense of students from another state. </p>
<p>If you are talking about instate kids paying variable amounts in tuition, meeting “need” seems an equitable and democratic way of funding education for all students of the state regardless of their parent’s financial situation.</p>
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<p>High tuition/High aid only really works for schools that are crazy prestigious. </p>
<p>For those private schools lower down on the prestige food-chain but have the same sticker price, those schools have to resort to heavy discounting via merit aid to get customers to bite; otherwise, the paying customers will just go elsewhere.</p>
<p>There are not an unlimited number of stooges who are willing to pay their kids inflated tuition AND pay their kid’s classmate’s tuition too. </p>
<p>Then again, the school could just have 50% full pay int’l kids and 50% full-aid poor American kids.</p>
<p>In an ideal world where everybody is honest and full of integrity your idea might work.</p>
<p>However, some families abuse and take advantage of the system at schools with 5,000 students. At a state school with ten times as many students, the problems would expand exponentially. The FA Offices generally have the roughly same number of employees despite the massive disparity in students. Once word spread that fraud was difficult/impossible to police, the numbers of “high need students” would explode.</p>
<p>Also, as GMT points out, your plan only works when a truly unique product is offered. If UMich charged $70k while MichSt charged $30k, East Lansing would suddenly become much more appealing for full pay students.</p>
<p>I don’t know what was so wrong w the old Medium tuition/Medium aid model</p>