Perhaps a better way would be for colleges to give a pre-read of FA for ED applicants, which should be doable quickly after the ED application deadline (but well before the ED decision release date). The college delivers the FA pre-reads to ED applicants and asks them whether they want to:
Keep the application as ED, but agree to no “back out for financial reasons” if the actual FA is at least as good as the FA pre-read and there is no documented family financial change, or
Switch to RD.
Applicants must decide the above choice well before the ED decision release date.
Not sure how feasible this is but I like the idea. You see cases of students declining ED because the aid is significantly less than the college’s NPC calculator had indicated, which i think is totally fair and such a scenario would take care of. I’ve also seen cases where students have compared to EA offers and decided to go with better merit offers even though they can afford the ED school. It’s the latter who I have a problem with, and this situation would also be addressed by your suggestion.
That’s not the way ED works. Families complete the NPC to get what’s supposed to be an accurate prediction of costs. If the school looks affordable based on those results they can apply ED. If the financial aid package is wildly different than the NPC results, as OP’s were, they can alert the school and see if there was an error. You may not like that middle income families apply in the ED round, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it if they want to.
The Pell Grant won’t pay for any college that I know of, so basing an ED application on Pell eligibility is a poor plan. That goes double at schools like NYU.
@Lindagaf sorry I missed the first mod warning. (Just an FYI using iPad I still get a lot of the screen jumping around with the “new” CC and do miss seeing posts as a result)
To the moderators point you got into NYU Gallo tan. Is it worth it ? So you create a major etc.
The answer is, on paper, absolutely not because you may or may not be employable after. You will not be an engineer or accountant etc. You will have a liberal arts type degree so most schools that are expensive won’t be worth it.
On a qualitative level you have to decide. Is nyc so important you want to risk paying back loans for many years or putting your folks in hardship ? Is there some ultra pull to NYC ?
Unless you are studying acting my take would be, from a non emotional POV, NYU would be a poor choice.
Keeping out emotion is the key. Not easy. But that’s what you need. Set up pros and cons of each school.
I’ve never been in debt besides a mortgage but I’ve read enough horror stories to know it’s something I never want
Worth every penny to Forbes historical target readers for whom college costs are pocket change. It would be different for those who would have to borrow to find the money.
Except kids with a 30k efc would likely get their best financial aid packages at those colleges.
NYU is not really one of them.
Reputation, network, and peer quality are especially important for Humanities/Social Science majors.
UT could arguably be seen as stronger in those fields than NYU, but the optimal college for this student may be neither, especially since s/he has been cap’ed.
All schools today push the liberal arts as what employers want. Yet you look at salary studies by majors and hot future jobs…well where I work and I have a history degree…no one says let’s get a sociology or history major or poli sci major. Those go to grad school - as this person plans to do…or do service jobs. Sure there are exceptions.
Anyway, in general, no school, maybe not even an Ivy League but perhaps only an Ivy League or Ivy League level school would be worth what this student must pay.
And there are plenty of great options - in addition to UT and NYU that would cost much less and be equally as exclusive. There’s many Honors Colleges today.
As an example, my child applied to William and Mary and Emory. No clue if she’ll get in but if there’s no money, she’ll settle for less pedigree and better for her and my long term financial future.
Anyway, I think said student got the point - most everyone said no it’s not worth it
Most jobs in today’s US economy are service jobs (versus manufacturing, agriculture, or resource extraction). You probably mean something like “low end service jobs” rather than any kind of service jobs that includes higher end ones like accounting, marketing, management, medicine, lawyering, financial services, CEO, etc…
Yes, I noted with a liberal arts degree you won’t be an accountant, etc. Even “management” today and marketing which I do - is very quantitative. I’m not saying NYU isn’t a great option but I am saying that with the sociology and anthropology and history and i’m embellishing here - but starbucks is a possibility of the future.
I don’t want to change the topic but I will point out that there can be both service and manufacturing jobs.
Earlier in the thread, it was said that it would not be worth it to go t to certain schools for a liberal arts degree. Would it be better to get a more specific degree?
At less selective colleges, employers are more likely to be looking for specific skills which may be major-related. At the most selective colleges, there may be college-elitist employers for whom the college name is seen by them as a stamp of quality so that major is less important. Students at the most selective colleges also have a strong high family SES skew, so that they are more likely to have family support and connections to help with an extended first job search, unlike many of those at less selective colleges who need to get a job immediately out of school to pay off student loans.
Wow. Came back to read all the replies and this post really shows how adults are sometimes 10x dumber than teenagers. The question is, “Is NYU worth the price” NOT “Is it moral to back out.” I feel bad for OP. But OP, just so you know, it is NOT immoral to back out despite what most people said. NYU makes it clear on their website that you can back out of ED if the financial aid packet isn’t affordable, so what you’re doing is completely moral so please don’t feel bad.
I mean, I’m sorry that happened but you act like this only happens in NYC. This happens in every major city in the world. It’s not NYC’s fault, rather the people who actually attacked you.
