<p>Marketing. People and institutions can say whatever they want (and often do), but money doesn’t lie.</p>
<p>When BMW puts a sexy car commercial on TV, do you run out to buy their latest model on credit even if you can afford to pay it off in full?</p>
<p>And I’m not sure what former constituency has to do with much. By your logic, since Nordstrom’s started out as a mid-market shoe seller, they should still sell workingmen’s boots at affordable prices? I don’t follow that logic. NYU is just following the same path that USC has trod and which NEU is following.</p>
<p>Cobrat- guess what- not a single college in the top whatever is still serving the constituency they used to. Get over it. it’s not rank hypocrisy for U Mass to charge what it charges- it’s reality. When I was in HS in Boston, in a very diverse community and HS, there was not a single college ready kid who could not find a way to attend U Mass. Live at home and commute to U Mass Boston. Work summers and vacations and pay to dorm- become an RA senior year. Done. If you couldn’t stand living at home, kids got jobs “house-sitting” / dog walking for professors, then commuted from there.</p>
<p>Name a single public flagship where a kid can attend with zero loans just by the seat of their pants and a little ingenuity and hard work. Not a one. The kids at Bunker Community College and the like weren’t there because they couldn’t afford the State U- they were there for remedial work, or because they couldn’t handle a full course load right away. But a kid who was ready for college work- the state university was there to make it happen.</p>
<p>You’re going to attack the private U’s for abandoning the middle and lower-middle and bottom tiers? That’s the rank hypocrisy, not NYU. </p>
<p>And if you knew NYU in the 70’s and 80’s then you know there were TONS of rich kids there at the time. European students who couldn’t hack it in their own University systems, rich kids from all over the NY metro area who didn’t want to be at one of the suitcase schools, etc. I think it’s astonishing that NYU has managed to dump the academic bottom fishers as they’ve upgraded their faculty and facilities.</p>
<p>If they continue to use a motto derived from a time they were serving to some extent as an engine of upward mobility for middle and to some extent, lower income students when their current tuition/fees and FA/scholarship policies are such only the really wealthy or the minute few who gain merit full-tuition scholarships which requires high elite U contender stats could afford to go, then the university is no longer serving as that engine of upward mobility for more than a miniscule portion, then they’re no longer meaningfully fulfilling that role they once fulfilled in their past institutional history up until the '60s. THAT’s where the hypocrisy comes from. </p>
<p>You’re right that as a private U, they can do whatever they want…albeit with some limits due to legal and political considerations. However, that doesn’t get them a free pass from criticisms from older New Yorkers…especially NYU alums among them like a downstairs neighbor (NYU '54) or those of us who are aware of the history of NYU and its relation to the NYC area. </p>
<p>@cobrat, there’s not a single NYU student who chose to apply the school because of that motto. (In fact, I’d never even heard of it until I read this thread, and I attended grad school in NYC and live in the NYC metropolitan area.) NYU doesn’t hold itself out as a refuge for less privileged in any other way, either. There are just a lot of kids who want to go to a big name college in Manhattan and can’t get into Columbia. Most can’t afford it. How is this a big deal, or any of concern to anyone? I personally couldn’t care less if NYU allocated a portion of its FA resources to gold plated cafeteria chairs. It’s not any of my business, and fortunately neither of my kids were dazzled by the place, so I didn’t have to talk them out of it. Except for Stern and Tisch, I see NYU as an overrated school and have no compassion for those who are so desperate to go there that they make stupid financial decisions in order to attend. </p>
<p>I’m kind of with Momma J on this and I’m not a Stern fan (I think there are a couple of world class departments and schools at NYU, with a bunch of OK and mediocre departments surrounding them. Looks like the trajectory upwards will continue though which I think is terrific.)</p>
<p>Yes, to get substantial aid requires “high elite U contender stats”. That’s a strategic choice the university has made. You can have the Courant Institute and some fantastic faculty and academic opportunities, but if you’re still admitting the B minus students from every mediocre HS on Long Island, you will not be able to improve the intellectual opportunities. Start attracting A students- yes, that’s where it begins.</p>
<p>How in the world is this hypocrisy? And why in heck are you more bothered by NYU - one university- than you are by 50 flagship universities abandoning the middle class? how the heck is a kid with a Pell grant and not much more supposed to attend his flagship U with the sticker prices being what they are?</p>
<p>Get all upset at U Conn or Penn State and your commitment to educational access will have some legitimacy. But to care about what NYU did with financial aid with this kid- star struck by living in Greenwich Village, and not enough horse sense to add up four years worth of tuition… that’s hypocrisy.</p>
<p>Now if this kid couldn’t have afforded Baruch or Macauley or City College- now we have something to talk about. But to blow her 60K savings for half a college education??? Is that rational?</p>
<p>a motto derived from a time they were serving to some extent as an engine of upward mobility for middle and to some extent, lower income students</p>
<p>NYU says: The University’s motto, “A Private University in the Public Service,” has its origins in NYU’s participation in the Washington Square Southeast Redevelopment Project proposed by Frank L. Howley, Vice Chancellor for University Development in 1953. NYU bid for and purchased the southeast portion of the park for educational rather than commercial use.</p>
<p>I am NOT a fan of NYU at all. But I am really tired of people who think they “deserve” to go there and don’t do the homework on cost. Also, where are their parents?? A five-second Google search will reveal the truth about NYU’s financial aid offerings. </p>
<p>You’re misunderstanding a part of my point. I have no problems with NYU raising their academic admission standards. </p>
<p>However, I do have an issue when their tuition/fees and need-based FA/scholarships are structured in such a way that only a tiny minority of top A students are getting full-scholarships and such scholarships aren’t need-based. A structuring which ends up effectively shutting out middle and moreso, lower income students who may be A students…but not have stratospheric stats to get the tiny portion of full-scholarships*. </p>
<ul>
<li>When I was graduating HS, several classmates who were getting full/near full ride FA after being admitted to Ivies like Cornell, Columbia, and Brown were turned down for those NYU full merit scholarships. No big loss for them.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>However, it illustrates a serious issue of not structuring one’s FA/scholarship policies so they can attract and retain topflight students from more than the upper/upper-middle class. In the process, one area which they’re seriously lacking…especially in the last few decades is SES diversity. NYU also ended up missing out on some excellent top students just because they happened to be from lower-income families…students who could have facilitated building up NYU’s academic cred rather than further augmenting those of their Ivy counterparts. </p>
<p>^ But you’re getting the point, right, that every school that either isn’t 100% needs met or that offers merit, could be accused of the same squeezing? (Oh, even schools that are 100%, since it still stretches a family’s ability.) Would you mandate every college reduce prices to levels families feel they can afford? And at what cost to the functioning of the U? (But if you want to go back to the oft repeated, “too much admin fluff, too many highly paid faculty,” I suggest a separate thread.) </p>
<p>Many of us parents already experienced the long, hard groan of figuring out what we could afford for our kids. A number of us, without benefit of NPCs. </p>
<p>cobrat, NYU is a private institution. It is in New York. Average mortals can’t afford to live in the city, and average-income kids can’t afford to go there. NYU probably doesn’t care that it is missing out on some top students from lower-SES backgrounds. Every full-pay kid helps it advance its goals of expansion in lower Manhattan and abroad.</p>
<p>There are low income families living within NYC…including Manhattan. </p>
<p>They range from folks lucky enough to live in a rent controlled/subsidized apartment building for decades to those living in less desirable areas/public housing. One issue within the last 2 decades, however, is how gentrification has rendered such folks invisible to many middle and higher income/SES folks…especially to those unfamiliar with the NYC area.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but why is it a serious issue that a private university that doesn’t have the endowment to give aid to all decides to give out money as it sees fit and draws the student body that it draws? </p>
<p>I see the abandonment by many states of all but a token amount of funding for higher education (and lack of the federal government stepping in to fill the void) as a more serious issue. </p>
<p>I’m trying hard not to take sides. Every year we have some CC attention drawn to lower income kids who end up in too much debt, maybe not finishing college, to boot. </p>
<p>From Oct 2013: SLAM member and Gallatin sophomore Lucy Parks said she may have to leave NYU after this year because of financial difficulties, adding that the group believes everyone should be able to go to their dream school.</p>
<p>There’s a video of her speaking on Yahoo Finance. She’s articulate- but I guess many are noting people have got to figure out what they can’t pay for. </p>
<p>Because as I stated in my first post, while this particular letter writer demonstrates remarkable naivete, NYU’s not totally blameless for the debt situation either because of the way they’ve structured their tuition, fees, and FA/scholarships. </p>
<p>I also forgot to mention part of the reason why NYU is hypocritical for the “Private University in Public Service” motto is also because an investigation by the then AG Andrew Cuomo found NYU’s had a revenue sharing agreement with loaner banks derived from the very student loans their financial aid office was encouraging students to undertake creating a serious conflict of interest:</p>
<p>While students undertaking such loans do have responsibility for signing on the dotted line, NYU has to shoulder some ethical and moral responsibility for creating the conditions and situations for this situation as well. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The NYU issue is one symptom among many of that very serious issue. Another symptom is how many states have cut their percentage of funding state universities to as low as 10% of overall operating expenses and yet, expect the state universities to continue fulfilling their mission to prioritize educating state citizens. </p>
<p>Cobrat, you need to take Econ 1 if you think that low income folks living in Manhattan in either rent controlled or public housing are NOT being given an economic transfer to subsidize their lifestyle. </p>
<p>Whether or not this is smart housing policy or not I leave to the experts. But your contention that NYU is somehow responsible for admitting and paying for every smart low income kid in the five boroughs is ridiculous. They have a financial aid budget (both need based and merit in the pot) and they decide the optimal way to distribute the funds- like every other college in America.</p>
<p>Why you reserve special ire for NYU’s strategy and policy is really beyond me. You think that one of your smart classmates taking a better deal from Brown or Penn is somehow a loss to society? That’s crazy.</p>
<p>I think this kids story illuminates just how stupid people can be when it comes to spending money. But this is not newsworthy- there are people all over America with zero savings buying fancy cars and enormous entertainment systems and god knows what. They don’t want you telling them that a used Toyota could get them where they need to go, and this kid didn’t want anyone telling her that she could get a BETTER education than NYU Gallatin somewhere else for far less money.</p>
<p>*…we are not able to meet the overall financial needs of our students. Annually the gap is on the order of $200–250 million.</p>
<p>That is why our ambitious goal for the Momentum Campaign is to raise by 2017 $1 billion exclusively dedicated to generating scholarships.*</p>
<p>It was wiser for cobrat’s friend to take the deal he got, than it would have been to take the “no deal” and then complain. And students today should be able to run the same math. Lucy got 30k in awards from NYU (apparently, each year.) Yes, her parents’ savings only lasted two years. </p>
<p>If a school awarded me or one of my children $30,000 per year I would be thrilled, oh, and by the way, grateful. Our family will pay full tuition at any school our children attend for the simple reason that we are a two income family who worked and saved enough so we don’t qualify. So perhaps I should be the one complaining. But I won’t, because I don’t believe that anyone has some inherent “right” to go to their “dream” school. You attend a school that makes sense financially and otherwise. And I think there are many schools that can make sense for every student.</p>
<p>My kids would have loved to go to NYU, and had the grades/SAT to be accepted. It truly is a fabulous dream campus. But we knew they wouldn’t get any aid and that they would have to take out massive loans, so they all went to instate public schools instead. Some of their classmates went to NYU and their parents paid the whole thing. Some of their classmates went to NYU and took out loans. I don’t know if any of their classmates matriculated at NYU planning for the tuition fairy to show up. This letter is ridiculous.</p>