Why would a school with enough endowment to be need-blind and able to admit the best applicants even want to consider lesser applicants? Why would they want to lower their Common Data Set academic statistics for additional money they don’t need?
Not every school uses the common app so the ‘are you applying for FA’ question is not there. Not every school uses the CSS and they aren’t giving a lot of need based FA, so they don’t care if your EFC is $20k or $80k - they aren’t giving you money.
Not every school cares about yield and some students have outside scholarships, so schools admit them and leave it up to the applicant if they can scrape together the funds.
I think they are truly need blind in admissions. And I think there are many more U of Big State and State U doing exactly what they claim to do, make admissions decisions separate from FA decisions.
Need blind in not only admissions but in giving aid as well because they clearly can’t see the need of students only need of the parents. Student’s need get ZERO consideration. They can’t see that one student also has free ride or affordable ride from other top 5 schools while other is being asked to pay insane amount he himself has no means to pay.
It seems like you have a serious misunderstanding as to what the normal expectations are regarding paying for a college education. The student’s need calculations take into account both what the student can contribute and also what the parent(s) can contribute in cases when the student is a dependent for need-based financial aid purposes.
If the parents of a dependent student are able to contribute but choose not to, that doesn’t make the student more needy. The reasonable expectation is that parents who are able to contribute will do so. If parents who are able to contribute refuse to do so, that’s unfortunate for the student, but it doesn’t shift the obligation to fund the education to someone else.
I want to make one comment here. Financial Aid does not come out of magic black box of money. Other than perhaps five schools, the school is simply charging different prices to different students with one group overpaying and the others getting a discount. As for those five or so don’t see why Harvard has to do so but they do the same thing as everyone else. The ONLY reason all other schools can provide financial aid, is that a significant percentage of the student body is paying retail while others are paying wholesale or nothing. I am not against that system at all, I understand it and believe it brings great benefit to the country, the school, and the high achieving students on financial aid. A school like Brown, with a relatively small endowment must admit a significant number of high income students to even offer generous financial aid. The money is being shifted from one group of families to another group. If you stopped admitting the one group, the other group of families could not attend because there would be no money. So criticizing schools like Brown for having a large number of parents who can pay the high tuition, is also saying that they wish Brown gave out less financial aid. It is really not something you can criticize or speculate about, it simply is the way things are. Looking at statistics for schools like Brown that offer a lot of financial aid and have full pay parents is just seeing the whole equation. It may be uncomfortable to realize that “financial aid” is in significant part simply a transfer of wealth between and among families of students, but that is the way it is. So, analyzing the student body’s wealth in the abstract is not particularly helpful without considering the consequences of changing that composition.
From the college’s point of view, it is the use of price discrimination to its advantage.
“with one group overpaying and the others getting a discount”
At some (most? I don’t know) schools even those paying list price are subsidized by the endowment and other income.
It wouldn’t be “most” schools where list price is subsidized by endowment earnings. That probably describes very few schools, although most of those are the kind of schools that posters on this forum focus on.
It is not accurate to say that an “endowment” pays for aid. Does some aid come from endowment? Yes. Have some schools built up separate endowments for aid? Yes. But, even the wealthiest schools depend heavily on tuition money with the possible exception of HYPSM. Northwester for example just went through a financial crisis cutting budgets. Cornell did also a few years ago. University Presidents don’t want to say it openly for morale reasons, but that is what is happening. I am not trying to be critical of commentators, I just see the emphasis on schools admitting too many full pay students as not providing the full picture. The situation is likely not sustainable because as tuition rises, the percentage of full pay will drop, which will limit financial aid.
How about “most” including public schools that are subsidized by taxpayers as “other income”?
Yes, most schools are need blind in admissions. Most schools only require a FAFSA as the financial aid application. None, but a tiny handful of schools, guarantee to fully meet need as defined by that FAFSA EFC.
RE @vonlost #40 -
Because they want to throw a bone to the alumni and offer legacy applicants a boost. They want to continue to offer athletic programs. Because they want some students in _____ department. Because they may want a diverse campus environment. Because they don’t want too many over represented minorities.
^ But NOT because they want the money! 
“…for additional money they don’t need”
Those goals can (and are) all accomplished by having different pools for applicants. They give legacy hooks, athletic hooks (and athletes receiving scholarships don’t get need based financial aid). If they want more chemistry majors, they can accept more chemistry majors without knowing their financial need.