NYT: Wake Up, Sheeple! College Still Cheap!

Parents Forum
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<p>Not sure the LACs are “increasingly generous with merit aid” as many that offered merit in the past are cutting back or eliminating this entirely to fund more need-based aid. And of course those with the most need should be supported to the greatest extent. </p>

<p>However, the article attempted to suggest that the only ones that are full pay at Amherst are those that make “hundreds of thousands” per year and are clearly very wealthy. I think the full pay (or close enough to full pay as to be not make a difference) line starts at a much lower income and is certainly not only those with endless disposal income that are expected to pay more than $60K per year. </p>

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<p>Mom2and:</p>

<p>Regarding LACs, that depends on where you look. If you look at Oberlin, Kenyon, Denison, OWU, or below (and in the Midwest and South), they’re definitely offering more merit aid now.</p>

<p>As for where full-pay starts, NPCs can settle that question. Where do you think full-pay starts at Amherst? I’m fairly certain that it’s above $200K (granted, amount of assets has an effect as well).</p>

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<p>Most of that’s due to the academic and research strengths at the graduate level. And most of that really started to come about due to the heavy Federal/State investment in US colleges and heavy influx of topflight international scholars who were refugees during and after WWII.* </p>

<p>It’s one factor in why many topflight foreign students who are able to gain admission to their home country’s top undergrad colleges opt to attend college in their home countries before coming to the US or other countries for their graduate degrees. It’s not only maximizes their social capital back home and abroad, but also usually far less expensive. The latter’s no small concern considering skyrocketing sticker prices for US private and even some public colleges(instate-UCs). </p>

<ul>
<li>A lot of the topflight scholars who were employed as Profs in their respective universities in their origin countries immigrated here to the US to escape persecution and/or the war and its effects during the '30s and 40’s.<br></li>
</ul>

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<p>Agreed. However, that assumes whoever is assigned to manage those investments is on the ball. </p>

<p>One of the factors for my LAC’s endowment which is lower than many peer LACs overall* is because sometime in the '80s and early '90s the fund wasn’t managed very well from what I gathered from hearing about my LAC’s institutional history from older alums, students, and faculty/staff. </p>

<ul>
<li>And that’s before one considers that endowment needs to be spread over many more students as my LAC is one of the larger ones by student population compared to many of its peer institutions.<br></li>
</ul>

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<p>In Oberlin’s case, it seems to be part of a campaign to increase its USNWR and other college rankings via stats, increase numbers of future alums from upper-middle class families who would be more able to give after graduation*, and a way to mainstream their college by trying to emulate their East Coast counterparts. </p>

<p>Factors which a lot of older alums have expressed concern and dissatisfaction in letters to our alum magazine as they feel our college is undermining its unique identity and attributes in order to increase its rankings. </p>

<ul>
<li>There was much angst and protesting about our LAC going off needs-blind admission among classmates not too long after I was admitted and during my time there.<br></li>
</ul>

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<p>@cobrat:</p>

<p>To be fair, with a falling HS population in OH and no/little growth or falling HS populations in surrounding states, a high cost structure intrinsic to the business model, and greater interest in research universities vs. LACs, the OH LACs have to innovate/change to maintain their status (or merely to survive). They’re really the tip of the iceberg, however. What’s hitting the OH LACs now will soon be affecting LACs (outside WASP) in other no/little growth or falling HS population states soon.</p>

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<p>I agree with others that the ability to pay has to be separated from whether the vast majority of US colleges are a good value today. </p>

<p>We probably are like many others on this site. After struggling in lower paid jobs for most of our children’s lives, in their last few years of high school we were able to secure the kind of higher paying jobs that disqualify us from financial aid. But without a long history of high pay, using our current income to pay for college means we will significantly delay our retirement to enable our children to graduate with little or no debt.</p>

<p>Our focus has been on the value of the education our children will receive at college. We don’t expect them to graduate with a trade or a job; we expect them to have used their brain to help discover their passion and then to have developed the grit to pursue it.</p>

<p>After extensive research, we haven’t found that many colleges have engaged in developing the quality curriculum that will serve our children well in today’s day and age. We find a lot of bloated faculty salaries and professors that have been resting on laurels accumulated decades ago. We find video-taped lectures that students can watch from their dorm rooms and lots of classes taught by TAs. We find a ridiculous amount of “breadth” requirements that seem designed only to keep humanities faculties employed - why should “cultures and contexts” be a required course, but not introduction to computer science? And this hasn’t been confined only to private or public schools. This kind of nonsense goes on at both - big names and small, elite publics and no-name privates and everything in between.</p>

<p>For any school in which our children were interested, we required them to develop a four year plan based upon the course catalog. Together we looked at degree requirements, class sizes and availability, depth of curriculum, reputation of professors, recruiter opinions, internship opportunities and placement. We deviated from the general tour and wandered around departments and went to office hours to speak with professors; our children sat in on classes in which they were interested. </p>

<p>We did not find that any particular school had a lock on intellectuals. There were smart people everywhere, just as there were slackers.</p>

<p>What we hoped would come out of all of this is that our children would appreciate how to determine the value of college and not just select a school that they wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell their friends they were gong to attend. </p>

<p>I venture to say that many people spend a lot of time looking at the cost of schools but not the value. They let their kids fall in love with “vibe” or “fit” instead of understanding the catalog and mapping out what four years will look like. And then when it comes to plunking down $250,000+ or more, they balk because they don’t believe there is any reason to delay their retirement by 5 years or more. I believe the value discussion needs to be had at the beginning of the process and the work of determining value be shared jointly by parents and children. </p>

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<p>@PurpleTitan‌ </p>

<p>The falling HS population in OH is unlikely to be a major factor considering the vast majority of students drawn to Oberlin tend to come from suburban/urban areas on the coasts and the Chicago area. Just this past year, the top two states sending the most students to my LAC are California and New York. It didn’t enroll many OH residents back when I attended. </p>

<p>In fact, the rate of OH students coming to Oberlin during the time I attended was so low that the then college president and the admins felt it was necessary to perform outreach and encourage adcoms to give special consideration for OH residents not too long after I graduated. Not sure if they continued this policy after the current college president succeeded her. </p>

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<p>Purpletitan: Where do you find that Oberlin and other mid-west LACs are offering more merit aid that pre-2008? Oberlin’s web site suggest a NMF can get a couple of grand and says this about other unrestricted merit money:</p>

<p>College of Arts and Sciences
A limited number of merit-based scholarships are available for students in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Office of Admissions makes the awards based on academic achievement and notifies students selected to receive merit awards at the time of admission.</p>

<p>Has that “limited number” increased or the amount of aid increased? Giving a couple of grant may count as merit money, but not often enough to get a kid to attend (unless they were going to go anyway which is one of the arguments against merit money). Reading this would not make me think my kid would with really good, but not superstar states, would be getting a reasonable merit offer </p>

<p>Kenyon and Denison seem to offer a wider variety of merit scholarships. College in the east seem to have moved away from merit money, at least in my experience. Schools my oldest got merit from no longer offer it (Franklin and Marshall as an example).</p>

<p>Certainly, as you move farther down the ranks more merit aid is available. </p>

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<p>I understood merit to be very thin at Oberlin, in the presentation we attended last spring. Need-based aid, yes, that is there. And it and Kenyon probably pull the most non-Ohioans of any LAC in the state, with Denison close behind, then perhaps Wooster. Once at Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan, Hiram, Ohio Northern, Baldwin Wallace, etc., then there is a clear majority of Ohio residents attending. </p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Does-Your-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=204501”>http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Does-Your-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=204501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Not only do I not think college is “still cheap” as per the headline to this thread, I doubt it is still affordable.</p>

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<p>That would make a lot of sense considering the purposes of providing merit aid for most colleges is to increase the academic stats profile and proportion of upper/upper-middle class families* in their prospective incoming class in order to increase their rankings on sites like USNWR. </p>

<p>Colleges at the elite ranks such as SWAMP, or HYPSM have far less of a need to resort to merit aid as they already occupy the highest ranks and are often inundated with students with high stats who are full pay and have large healthy endowments to provide FA/scholarships for students from lower income families. </p>

<ul>
<li>Thinking they’re more likely to donate and spread word about the college as loyal alums…and have the economic means to do so once the student has graduated.<br></li>
</ul>

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<p>@mom2and & @OHMomof2:
For some reason, Oberlin does not like to advertise it (probably because of the feeling of alumni like those that @cobrat described), but while at one time, Oberlin thought that using merit aid to compete for admits with the likes of Denison and OWU was “beneath them”, these days, they have decided to engage in that practice. My take is thus that Oberlin is unlikely to offer large merit aid unless you get a lot from elsewhere, but if you do get a lot from elsewhere and they want you & you tell them that you’d choose to go to Oberlin if they also give you a lot of merit money, they’d consider giving it to you to get you. So the short answer is, yes, Oberlin (and all the OH LACs) are giving more merit money than 10 years ago. Probably many of the Midwestern LACs.</p>

<p>Oh, and some of the all-female LACs also seem to be pretty generous with merit aid (I believe more so than before).</p>

<p>BTW, this list is incomplete but still valuable: <a href=“Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com;

<p>Obviously, you’d have a better chance of getting merit money if you’re in the top quartile of a school by stats.</p>

<p>@cobrat:
The East Coast doesn’t exactly have a booming population either. For that matter, neither does CA these days.</p>

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<p>@PurpleTitan‌ </p>

<p>Actually, you touched on another reason why they don’t advertise using merit aid. You hinted at it when you stated they felt doing so was “beneath them”. </p>

<p>Providing merit aid to some colleges is the equivalent in their estimation of admitting they’re still in the lower-tiers and need to do so to increase their perceived prestige comparable to higher tiered/elite colleges which don’t need to resort to using merit aid to attract higher stat and upper/upper-middle class applicants </p>

<p>In short, providing merit aid…especially in large amounts can be viewed as akin to showing lack of confidence in one’s perceived standing in relation to one’s peer colleges and ironically, contrary to Oberlin’s rich historical legacy and no pun intended, lacking the “Fearless” trait they espoused in the admissions marketing campaign from several years back. </p>

<p>An easy thought experiment to underscore this…would HYPSMC or one of the SWAMP colleges resort to using merit aid to attract high stat applicants…especially in large amounts? </p>

<p>In some ways, its similar to the dynamic involved in the stereotype of the snooty waiter at a fancy high-end 5+ star French restaurant in NYC or Paris which attracts so many wealthy and well-connected folks such as European Aristocrats and the like that if you’re just “merely wealthy” or worse…middle class, they’ll act as if you’re a nonentity at best as opposed to a more humbler restaurant serving good food and having waiters and owners who treat every customer with the requisite respect due to a paying customer who hasn’t shown any intention of behaving badly…or raiding the establishment Viking style. </p>

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<p>My impression is this is likely to be much more of a problem for lower-tiered private colleges and less so with schools like Kenyon and Oberlin, and comparable Midwest LACs unless the financial folks managing their endowments royally screws up. </p>