I’m all for economic diversity. But I am confused about what those of us in the middle class who work hard for merit aid and don’t quality for enough need-based aid are supposed to do. All of the Ivy League is closed to us. I’m guessing that means more applicants seeking merit aid at the remaining top schools. Already there is a squeeze. And now WUSTL is cutting back on merit aid. Do you have to be low or high income to go to the best schools? Not picking a fight. I’m honestly confused.
I’m with you @krispy1. I wonder if the changes will start happening this year. I’m hoping since they just made the announcement it will take them time to get going. My daughter is applying for merit scholarships. Fingers crossed. I will have 2 kids in college and they expect more then half of our income before taxes on the tuition. Considering that we live in one of the most expansive are in US that’s not much left to live on. You’re also penalized if you have any savings. My husband says that colleges encourage bad financial behavior. If you don’t put money away and are in huge debt you will get financial help. But if you’re responsible and try to save as much as you can, then they want everything you got.
@momworried, my parents make just enough that I won’t qualify for financial aid. But $50,000 per year for room and board, with grad school coming after…is a big crunch. That’s one reason I’ve worked hard on academics all these years, so I could get some merit aid. Sad to think that only a very select few will get it at schools like WUSTL.
Well education in the US is a profit-driven industry. There’s no reason to think that any policy WashU or any other school sets should primarily in favor of students. Schools always care about their students first, unless it conflicts with the goal of profitability.
@idkmybffjil I can’t speak to private colleges such as WUSTL, but I can speak to public colleges as I am an academic myself. There is no “profit” in education. At the flag ship university where I work, the state keeps cutting back and cutting back on funding. Our GO dollars from the state are the same as they were in 1999. I don’t know about you, but if my family were making the same amount of money as they did in 1999 we would be in a world of hurt! Thus, public institutions, anyway, have 4 options to balance the books (not make money but balance the books): 1) Raise tuition (but in our state the state government limits how much we can raise tuition), 2) Increase the number of students we admit (with the same or less number of faculty to teach them), 3) Increase endowments (which is hard when the economy is down), and 4) increase NSF/NIH/DOD research funding (which has all been cut way back because of federal government cutbacks). It is a self-fulfilling prophecy here: You raise tuition so less people can afford to send their kids to college without going into debt; You increase the numbers of students which means faculty get disgruntled and leave and/or faculty spend more time teaching leaving less time to write research grants which means less money for the institution; If you don’t increase endowments then you can’t increase scholarships for the students; If you don’t increase research funding, your rankings go down for USNWR/Forbes/PrincetonReview/AAU and then less students and faculty want to come…Oh did I mention that the total number of students graduating from HS peaked in 2012 and is now going down so colleges of all types are fighting over fewer students and that trend is going to continue… There may be some “profit” in private institution where they charge $95/applicant and 30K or 40K students apply and they only admit 5-10% of the applicants, but it is not true in public institutions…