The super-selective private schools enroll only a small percentage of students from poor families. Most them enroll half of their students with no financial aid, probably from families with incomes over $200,000. Pell grant recipients from lower and middle income families make up only about 10-20% at most such schools. Those few from poor families that they deem worth admitting are those whom they will make it affordable for to attend.
Although to be fair, I don’t necessarily think of (most) higher education as a truly self-less altruistic endeavor. They may not be “for-profit” but there is someone keeping an eye on the bottom line.
One of the things the poorest students never got were all of the advantages that you have received your whole life by the fact that your parents have a decent income and have made good choices along the way. Most of those poorest of students who manage to get those huge financial aid packages that the relatively few get, would have traded places with you at any point in your childhood, without a doubt.
There are so many colleges in this country that the poorest students have no chance of attending due to the cost. The ones that can meet 100% of their need are a handful, if they are lucky enough to get in. And even then, coming up with the self help part of the package and navigating through everything else it takes to get to and be in college is still insurmountable for some due to their lack of resources and experiences.
If your family can afford to give you any amount of money toward your education, that is a gift, just like all of the opportunities that they have provided up until now. You are talking about kids for whom that gift is an impossibility. It does you no good to resent poor students who work hard and do well enough despite horrible disadvantages to get these big financial aid packages. The fact that you might not be able to go to a 60,000+/year school and you may not be able to, well that’s life.
My family will only pay for a public education but @ucbalumnus that makes sense thanks
Kind of my point @BucketsUCSC, your parents are being extremely generous when they are giving you the equivalent of a new car every year for the next four years. It may not be a fancy one, but they can afford to GIVE that to you. It is important to recognize and appreciate just how special that is. Be grateful that ANY school that you can get into for whatever that price is open to you. Your parents will also likely pay for a lot of the other stuff you need for college. That is not the case for the poorest kids who get big financial aid packages. Somebody’s parents deserve a big thank you.
I think this is a case of counting other people’s (institution’s) money. It’s no business of yours what they do with it.
Where did I say you’re a bad person? I’m not in the habit of calling people names, especially children.
Nobody can answer why colleges are, in your words, “wasting money,” without examining if it’s even true. I don’t believe it is.
Why isn’t helping society enough of a benefit for helping low income people? Sometimes, we do things because it’s the right thing to do. From a public relations standpoint, it creates goodwill. What are colleges losing by helping low income students?
If I understand you correctly, you don’t like it because it doesn’t help you. If you want to qualify for the aid that low income families get, encourage your parents to quit their jobs, sell off their assets, and donate all the proceeds. Problem solved.
There are people who argue that merit scholarships should be abolished b/c they are simply aid to the MC and wealthy in disguise.
The phrase you want is low income. Colleges really aren’t interested in whether or not you agree that the students they choose are desireable. If they pick up on your current attitude, they may have trouble finding a reason to admit you. Do you imagine all adcoms came from middle income families?
*bold, mine
@austinmshauri from my experiences and the people i talk to they look at colleges at money making machines that dont care about their students what my friends tell me but i cant understand this because they give such generous aid to low income students which is very honorable and even though i dont like that for selfish reasons on the colleges behalf its a very nice and honorable thing to do
@bucketsUCSC, When parents earn too much for need based aid and won’t pay for private school, it generally means the student has to look for merit aid. Sometimes schools will end up being too expensive even with merit aid, but with high enough stats it can work. Ask your parents how much they’ll pay per year, then try to find a school with merit aid that will bring it down to that cost.
FWIW, most low income students don’t get enough aid to be able to go away to school. Getting a merit award is nice, but when it brings the cost of attendance down to $20k/year, the gap may as well be $60k. Low income families can’t pay that kind of money. I think most students commute, so if your parents can pay for you to go away to school, you’re very lucky.
In my case the private school benefitted from accepting intelligent and hard working poor kids like me because we offset the wealthier slackers who failed to graduate. Kept their stats healthier. We weren’t the ones having drunken binges and destroying school property; we were studying or often doing volunteer work off campus. We made up the majority in most campus organizations other than ski club, frats and the investment group.
Also we poor kids did the campus jobs that needed to be done. Would you be willing to work in the cafeteria dish room or stock the bookstore shelves?
^ this
Who would a college want? A poorer but hardworking student who is determined to “rise up” and is ever-grateful of the oppurtunity this specific colleges has given him, or the richer and maybe lazier student who knows that even if he fails out, there are other colleges to go to?
Also, a school that only makes itself affordable to the rich is very quickly going to get a bad rep among the lower class and will be uneven demographically.
Well, this is why all of the good universities are non-profit.
It may be a bad business strategy, yes, but - it’s a good model for producing educated people for entering the workforce.
In the long run, it’s good for society and the economy to educate low-income people, and help them with the financial side of attending college.
Very simple solution to your issue. If you feel you are “getting screwed” because your family is middle income…then just get your parents to get low paying jobs, move to a less expensive area, and become low income yourself. Of course, you may have to give up some of the things you are used to doing, but you too can be low income.
I know you don’t want folks to respond unless they agree with you. But here goes. We were considered “middle income” when our first kid went to college. We actually considered ourselves to be very fortunate. We live a nice life, and our family was comfortable even though not wealthy by any measure. We didn’t qualify for a penny of need based aid. Our calculated EFC was greater than the cost of attendance.
We viewed this as good news…not bad. Sure, we had to fully fund college costs. But really…we did not resent the lower income folks who received grants or other need based aid for which we were ineligible.
Many of the more generous and more competitive colleges give need based aid to families with incomes in the $150,000 a year range or higher now. Is your “middle income” in that range or less! If so, apply to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford. You likely will get some need based aid.
Only thing is I’m not a star student I’m good top 10 percent of my class but will most likely be going to UCI or UCSB
UCI and UCSB do not guarantee to meet full need for all. The bulk of their need based aid is I the form of the Calgrant for family income earners less than $80,000. If your incime is higher than that, you would likely not get need based aid.
But even if you did…you would likely have. Gap between your FAFSA EFC and what the school actually expects you to pay.
Even with the cal grant, you would have significant college expenses.
There are plenty of CA low income residents who cannot attend a UC and reside on campus because even with the Cal Grant or Blue and Gold Promise…plus a Pell and Direct Loan…these are still not affordable.
I’m not sure where your issue about low income aid is coming from, because at the schools you mentioned here…low income students don’t have much of an edge…unless they are able to live at home.
^ agree. My family is “low-income” and my husband will be going to a UC next year. Yes we get a bit in aid, but it’s still going to cost us about $15,000 a year, and that’s after work-study, summer jobs, etc. Our situation is a bit different as we’re married with children, but my husband going to school isn’t actually affordable. But we’re determined to make a better future for our kids and become middle class taxpayers. And when that time comes, and we’re over the low income bar for our kids going to college, we’ll gladly pay.
Think of it as the colleges leveling the playing field a bit for low income students. As a middle income kid, there are many, many advantages you have had for 18 years of your life that low income students often have not. Most likely you live in a nice house in a safe area, have reliable transportation, have internet access, don’t worry about where your next meal will come from, attended a good school that adequately prepared you for even attending college in the first place, are able to pay for all the little costs that add up just in the college search process (testing ACT/SAT, application fees, college visits, etc…). These are all barriers that exist for low income students so no, colleges are not “wasting” their money on these kids. They are helping to make their lives better in a way that their families could never make possible.