<p>^ Actually, you should probably know that some families (of 4) can qualify for pell grants making around 60k. I’ve seen many of my friends get it, although not the maximum amount. And any comment as to why UCLA has over 3 times as many students getting Pell Grants compared to us?</p>
<p>By the way, we’re number 246/250 on students receiving Pell grants for major universities. We’re only beating Princeton, Caltech and Washington</p>
<p>Isn’t the real issue for middle class families considering UVa that UVa does not offer merit aid outside of the Jefferson Scholarship program? That certainly seems to be a major difference between UVa and UNC. </p>
<p>Dean Roberts recently mentioned his desire to add merit aid to the mix at UVa, but there is no money for that now. And, with the recession, the Access UVa funds are being sapped at a much higher rate than expected. </p>
<p>These types of programs rely on outside benefactors to fund them. So to the students who lament the level of financial aid currently offered at UVa, you can make a difference in the future by donating to the University . . . .</p>
<p>UVa has excellent need based aid for middle income families. The desire for merit money is to moderate the $47K or more a year cost for out of state US students for upper-upper middle income families, particularly when many other competing colleges are offering those students merit aid. These are families that could theoretically full pay price, but they can’t justify paying $47K to $50K (if you include comm school extra costs and/or engineering fees) if a similar college is offering a quality education at $30K a year after merit. </p>
<p>The offering of merit aid also becomes a status symbol, even for students who can afford full price.</p>
<p>Many other colleges offer at least a token amount of merit money for their honors program admitted students. Echols/Rodman do not directly receive any merit money. </p>
<p>Personally, I’d rather see the Jefferson Scholarships be 50% funding for twice as many students. Too many full merit scholarships end up just resulting in the student using the savings to buy an expensive sports car.</p>
<p>Simply for the sake of people reading this who don’t know, the Jefferson Scholarships are completely sponsored and funded by the alumni association. You are nominated by your school and go through a series of interviews, and a final selection weekend, which does take place at UVa. If your school does not participate there is an ‘at-large’ selection process within EA applicants for consideration (see link below for very specific info.). You may not apply directly for the Jefferson Scholarship.</p>
<p>As the link said, the Jefferson Scholarships come from a separate foundation, not the alumni association. </p>
<p>Regarding merit, a school such as UVA gets plenty of talent as it is, and does not need to offer merit scholarships to compete. There isn’t anywhere near the money to do that, and what really would be the point? As schools try to distinguish themselves in their aid for lower-income people, that puts even more pressure on need-blind merit aid.</p>
<p>I’m unsure where the claim came from in the thread about UNC’s offer of merit aid. When my daughter went there not long ago, merit aid, especially for OOS, was extremely hard to come by. Carolina had no need for it, either. And no, I don’t count the very small pool of special scholarships, such as Morehead.</p>
<p>See [UNC</a> Scholars Program](<a href=“http://scholarsprogram.unc.edu%5DUNC”>http://scholarsprogram.unc.edu), for info on the UNC merit scholarships outside Morehead and Robertson. The OOS scholarships can be for full OOS tuition. I am not advocating for or against merit scholarships, per se, but they can be a godsend for students of limited means who want to attend college without mortgaging their or their family’s future with substantial loans. Every year come decision time, one hears of students who chose UNC or XYZ over UVa because of the merit money they received elsewhere. </p>
<p>I admire those students who pass on the most selective/expensive schools they are accepted to for tuitions and other costs they can better afford. Many schools offer substantial merit programs to attract high achieving students. Both of my kids could have attended schools outside Va (we’re IS) for essentially the same prices as schools within VA – not counting travel.</p>
<p>Charlieschm, I don’t agree with you that “UVa has excellent need based aid for middle income families.” Just the opposite in fact. We are OOS middle income and my daughter received only a little bit of AccessUVA funds ($2K) the first 2 years; it was cut to virtually nothing this year. Her 4 years at UVA will be costing us in total about $45,000 more than what we payed for her sibling who attended an ivy.<br>
I’ve come to the conclusion that for many OOS students, UVA is over priced for what you get. It’s a good value for IS though. </p>
<p>I like your idea for Jefferson Scholarships. My daughter just met an incoming Jeff Scholar from our state who is from a very wealthy, prominent family and certainly doesn’t need the scholarship. She’s a lovely, accomplished girl, so very deserving of the honor, but it does seem a little excessive to give a full ride to extremely few and nothing to the other very deserving students.</p>
<ol>
<li> UVA is a great value for IS students.</li>
<li> OOS are taken advantage of. UVA is not looking for middle class OOS students to give loans to. They want kids that can pay the full OOS COA so they can keep the cost down for IS students.<br></li>
<li> Merit aid is given to help the school not to help the student.</li>
<li> State flgships have success recruiting top students with merit schoraships. $200K is $200k no matter what your family income is.</li>
<li> No one should demand some one else pay their tuition but it is nice when some one helps.</li>
</ol>
<p>I fail to see how OOS are taken advantage of. Hopefully, OOS families that choose to apply do their due diligence and are aware of the costs going in. Of course, costs can rise over the course of 4 years, but that is true for IS students as well. Nobody forces anyone to attend a public university outside their own state.</p>
<p>While the Ivies may offer better aid than UVa, they are not an option for most students. My son was accepted by three high quality private colleges/universities that are a step below Ivies, and they offered the same net cost (after aid) as UVa (he’s out of state). A fourth selective private university offered much less aid.</p>
<p>An out of state family making 80K will receive AccessUVa aid in almost all cases, unless they have unusually huge non-retirement assets. You might try UVa’s financial aid calculator on the website.</p>
<p>Back in the olden days, UVA had, de facto, an awesome merit aid program for OOS students – namely a very attractive tuition sticker price as compared to peer private schools. Similar to what you see today at UNC.</p>
<p>In 87/88 UVA OOS tuition was 11,152. That year Wake was 14,356, Duke was 19,801, Georgetown was 21,876. [UVA IS was 4,685.]</p>
<p>Most of that OOS price advantage is now gone. In 11/12 UVA OOS was 36,780. Wake 41,576, Duke 41,938, Georgetown 41,393. [UVA IS is 11,786.]</p>
<p>What Admission Dean Roberts is talking about is trying to compete with those private schools that routinely discount their tuition (i.e. merit scholarships) by $10-25k to get top students to enroll. The Ivies and most of the other schools ranked above UVA don’t do much merit aid (yet), but some schools ranked in UVA’s range do – USC, Rice, WUSTL, Vandy. And many schools ranked a little below UVA do merit aid a lot.</p>