This is true for admissions purposes, but many need blind schools package FA after the student is accepted. Thinking many public unis are likely in this group, so once a student is accepted, FA, admissions, and athletics (as needed), are absolutely working on packages together in the manner econpop is talking about.
My experience with public schools is that they have strict policies regarding awarding of aid. There may be some wiggle room in the awarding, but not as much as you might find at a private school. I once worked with a guy who got fired (public U) because he was trying to go around the awarding rules.
The need based FA is probably being worked on in parallel with admission, at least for the simple scenarios. Merit scholarships or preferential packaging would come from admission results; it may then have to be merged with need based FA.
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The vast majority of schools are Need Blind. When it comes to schools with admit rates >55%, it often isnât being admitted or not admitted that restricts lower-income students from attending. It is most often the COA that keeps lower-income students from attending.
So, yes, the vast majority of lower-income students admitted to Loyola Chicago (to choose an example at random) may be admitted without regard to their FinNeed. However, after a student has been admitted and the various departments get together to create an aid package, some lower-income admittees will be presented with FinAid packages that might reach a COA of $3000K/yr, while others will be presented with FinAid packages in the $15K-25K range which would render the school unaffordable. The difference depends on how much the decision-makers feel they need/want THAT particular student on their campus.
I knew which schools REALLY wanted my S20 based on the figures on their initial FinAid package. It was as obvious as night and day. But there was no way to determine that before applying, receiving a decision, and receiving a FinAid package.
Perhaps youâre referring to schools that Meet Full Need and are also Need Blind? Most of those schools have admit rates below 30% which takes them off the board for the non-high-stats students I referred to.
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Harvard is dirt cheap. For a low income family making $150k with no other assets, the Net Price Calculator shows a total cost of $18,500, with $15k from parents and $3500 from a student job. Thatâs full tuition plus at least some of the room and board covered. Thatâs because $150k is low income by Harvard standards.
I get that travel and living away from home may be beyond many families, but HYPS and maybe a couple of others will almost always be cheaper than other non-stay-at-home options, except for students who are similarly elite enough to get one of the ultra selective full ride scholarships at some state universities.
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Also, those with divorced parents have more difficulty getting financial aid at schools that require both divorced parentsâ finances, since divorced parents are more likely to be uncooperative.
True. The problem with need-based aid is that it is kind of a one-size fits all philosophy. This yearâs savings and salary might look good, but maybe parent has a terminal illness and then no possibility for the child in the future. Thatâs the fundamental inequality of a class-reinforcing educational system. Education goes to those who are lucky enough to have the life circumstances to be able to pursue it.
We could never get to a free education model in the US with the entrenched interests of the industry (HYPS etc.), but it would be nice if there were many more of the full free-ride type of scholarships. If the top 5% of students nationally could get deals like those offered for grad school (zero tuition plus living stipend), Iâd be all for it.
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This.
I live in the real world, where $150,000/year is not low income. I worked at a public university for a number of years, and I saw how difficult it was for families to afford even a state directional school. The cost of college is out of reach for so many. The vast majority will not be qualified for full rides or full need meeting schools. Merit only applies to the few. Community college is fine ⊠if you live close enough to commute ⊠and if your family situation allows you a safe place to live while in school. Even if that works out, the final years of a bachelorâs degree is unaffordable for so many.
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While the merit money system at colleges is far from perfect, most of the issues and complaints on this board seem to have less to do with concept of merit being offered at all, and more to do with who is deemed worthy. There is quite a bit of merit floating aroundâŠand many, many families on CC who are completely uninterested in the merit that is easiest to get for High Stat applicants. There is plenty of merit available for the 3.0-3.5 student as well, if you are willing to look at/attend the schools that offer it.
Merit money is given out as a discount to entice students to enroll. It isnât widely available to validate egos or reward the âworthyâ (however one wants to define that term).
We were a merit seeking family. We understood that meant the schools most likely to come in at the budget we set werenât going to be schools many many families were going to have even heard of, let alone seriously consider applying to.
Merit has (most often) a simple rule. To find a school willing to give you money you donât âneedâ - you need to be bringing the school something theyâve decided they need. Highly selective schools donât need to give scholarship and grant money to high stats students (by and large). Those that do still give some merit usually only give it to a literal handful of students per year.
D20 was an âaverage excellentâ student (ht @Lindagaf). She was looking for SLACs. Unlike most average excellent students on CCâŠshe never considered Bates, Skidmore, Colby, Haverford, Connecticut College, etc. Because she needed merit money to make her school choice affordable - we as a family took meets full need schools off the table completely before she even started to make her list. We then removed most SLACs that offer limited, highly competitive merit off the table. From there, we started seriously looking only at SLACs that offered fairly widespread merit awards that had the potential to cover 50% or more of the COA of the school.
She ended up at a school that most people ignore on CC, when it comes up at all. But they gave her a lot of merit money, with relatively few strings attached. And she is getting an excellent educationâŠeven if she didnât get âoohs and ahhhsâ from friends and acquaintances when she told them where she was going to school.
Often times, when families come on to CC to ask about where their child can get merit money - knowledgable posters start showering threads with great options. Then the OP often dismisses many if not all of the suggestions as not being the right location, or having too many/not enough students on campus, or having the wrong weather.
Iâm all for each student deciding their best fit, and each family deciding what they are and arenât willing to bend on. But if money is a limiting factor - somethingâs gotta give. Each family needs to decide whether they actually need the merit money - in which case, casting a wide net to have choices of what can be given up, for how much money makes a lot of sense.
Iâm often reminded of the old saying, âHe who pays the piper calls the tuneâ. D20 didnât get to call the tune in her college search, but she did have the opportunity to listen to the tunes played at each school willing to pay her to attend. And she picked the one whose tune sounded best among her good choices - not which one sounded best if she got to pick exactly what she wanted to hear.
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I donât agree. HYPS are not the reason that college isnât free. In the aggregate, the Ivies plus Stanford educate a small percentage of degree-seeking people. The LARGE target should be the public Universities which have largely abandoned their commitment to educating the citizenry at a reasonable cost in search of the arms race- huge and elaborate athletic facilities, highly paid athletic personnel (and Iâm not talking about the helmet sports which allegedly have a positive ROI because of the money they bring in- but personnel that are responsible for money-losing sports), endless food options, upgraded dorms, etc.
I am shocked by the housing options at my own state flagship U. The cost, the amenities, the total inability for a low income family to even contemplate dorming. And the facilities for the non-flagship are in a race to catch up.
So this ainât Harvardâs fight. if you care about affordable (let alone free) start with the huge targets on the backs of most of the 50 stateâs public Uâs. Thatâs where the meat of the problem exists. Harvard cuts the price for people earning 150K or should it be 175K if they come from Menlo Park or Atherton where housing costs are high? Who cares. But why are the public Uâs getting a pass on their pricing and discounting policies?
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This. In my view our public universities, including state flagships, should be truly affordable options for all kids who are academically qualified - not just affordable compared to Harvard.
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To add to @Thorsmom66âs suggestion, I would say any federal loans should be offered at 0% for students attending their public options, including state flagships.
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Seems like many parents and students here are unwilling to look at colleges that are âbeneathâ them (in admission selectivity) as being desirable â but that set of colleges is the set that includes those most likely to offer larger merit scholarships.
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I am not sure this is true though re: why costs are high? Do you have a data source? You have to sort through how much athletic programs cost (many are fully funded in the sense that revenue generating sports cover the rest of the team costs), ignore buildings that were fully paid for via donations, etc.
Many colleges have seen a large increase in the number of non-teaching staff which partially explains a rise in costs. Some of this increase is due to government reporting regs (institutional reporting/Clery/NCAA/Fin Aid, etc), some due to student demands (eg., mental health counseling), probably some fat here and there. The cost of maintaining aging buildings with antiquated systems is also high.
I can speak a bit to UIUC, which costs about $32K in-state before merit/discounts/need based aid and is widely chastised for being âexpensiveâ. The campus does not look good/show well, which I know @tsbna44 agrees with! Good on the one hand that UIUC hasnât spent money on frills, but bad when hundreds of people visit campus every day, and some of whom walk away uninspired.
Many buildings are old and not well cared for. Student union and library furniture and carpeting are old, stained, torn. There is no nice landscaping, and it is noticeable if one visits both IU and UIUC for example. I know many students who love their time at UIUC, but some wonât even consider it after they visit, partially based on how it looks and its perceived lack of amenities.
Big picture, Illinois state is suffering from a net outflow of students, which is a problem as data show students who leave for college often donât come back. UIUC does provide a full ride for EFC 0 students (subject to asset limits) and full tuition for students making less than ~$67K (also subject to asset limits).
Anywhoo, hereâs the net cost of UIUC for in-state students by income bracket (from IPEDS so subject to the many caveats of their dataset).
But how to do this? IMO it seems to be more of a revenue problem (school funding from state budgets) than an expense one (school spending too much/on the wrong things) but I donât really know. Probably at some schools itâs some of both. I would love to see data on this for public schools if anyone knows of any.
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Defunding by state governments is a big part of the issue. Spending increases are also an issue, but that is not just limited to spending on the âwrong thingsâ. Education as it is done in most colleges and universities is labor intensive, and labor keeps getting more expensive, in part because of such things like increasing medical insurance costs.
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I just shared my last salary with my son, who is in his early 30âs. I was an administrator who ran enrollment management. He was shocked that I had so much responsibility and was paid so little. But itâs true that all the salaries and related benefits do pile up and total a lot.
Yes, not only HYPS, but the entire model and philosophy of US education is allergic to free. State support for higher education covers only a small percentage of the cost in all but a few states (although Alaska and Hawaii provide 20k per student, most provide less than 10k, all the way down to $2500 for Arizona).
There is an anti-tax strain of thought that sees university funding as an exclusively private benefit, with no public benefit to society as a whole. Because an entire network of well-funded and influential private universities exist to serve the needs of the âelitesâ on the other side of the fence, there is no countervailing pressure to open up education to a wider audience. It is not a system designed for maximum fairness, and not likely to change.
Another aside, the helmet sports are pursued not only for marketing and revenue, but also help fuel the medical research complex, with traumatic brain injury centers and other sports medicine specialities benefiting from their presence on campus.
Couldnât agree more (having been on the faculty of a state flagship for almost 20 years).
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DC spends about $34k per student according to the linked page. DC has only UDC, which had a fall 2022 enrollment of 3,577 (2,758 full-time-equivalent) according to https://docs.udc.edu/irap/Factsheet_Fall2022.pdf .
What family would this describe? My family makes about half that on average- inflation adjusted- over 20 years, and we are considered to have too high of assets even for the FAFSA. Making $150,000 and spending the same as we currently spend, we would have been saving like $80,000 a year at least (adjusting generously for higher marginal taxes etc. After a few years, thatâs a lot of money!) Anytime we have made over about $50,000, we save all of it above that or put it toward the house.
What always seems unfair to me is the idea that having lived frugally and prudently to save on an income under $100,000 (sometimes far under) seems to be penalized over and over as having âtoo high of assetsâ for your assumed ability to pay. Itâs the assumption that families on $60-70,000 must be dysfunctional or disadvantaged in some way and so unable to save. In reality, that salary range is well above average private school teacher pay and is a very good salary range at many college professor levels. Families should be allowed to have some assets at that level and still be seen to have need.
It reminds me of the one time we were audited by a state in the deep south. We had itemized because of some medical expenses that year, which combined with our charitable donations made it worth while to itemize. (Only time ever) Well, they audited us and gave the explicit reason that it was âsuspiciousâ that a family with our income would donate that much to charity. It was only like 8-9%. I mean, thatâs not even full tithing. (Our audit was fine- we had all the receipts.)
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