“Since Amy Gutmann became Penn’s president in 2004, Penn’s financial-aid budget has grown by 171 percent, and the University has awarded $2 billion in undergraduate aid to a total of 17,253 students.
This current academic year, 46 percent of Penn undergraduate students received need-based grants from the University, with the average grant for students estimated at $45,368.
Most undergraduate students with a family income of less than $40,000 received grant-based aid covering the total cost of tuition, room and board and fees. Ninety-four percent of undergraduate students with a family income of $180,000 or less received grant assistance.“
@Penn95 - the increase is good, but it means that roughly 54% of the class pays full freight, right? That’s a lot of students paying the full ($50,000+/yr cost).
I imagine it’s the same at other top schools too (minus maybe MIT or Caltech - as the NY Times data showed, they seem to have markedly less wealthy student populations, somehow).
They raise the price to sky high and then offer FA to some students. A lot of Full pay students suffers badly. In instead of FA, why not lowering price of tuition, food, and room???
^ definitely agree. what ends up happening is that a doughnut hole is created. Many admitted students from comfortably well-off but not rich families end up choosing to attend honors programs of good but less competitive schools over Penn and other top schools because of merit aid… And that is the good case scenario. The bad case scenario is that some of these families take on debt because the don’t want to pass on the opportunity of sending their kid to a prestigious school.
I do wonder when this upward trend will stop. If higher ed tuition keeps going up like this for elite colleges, in a decade or so the cost will be $100,000. Especially the Ivies, Stanford,MIT know that people will remain willing to shell out big time to send their kids there, even go into debt to do so, so they are not going to change their ways any time soon. And the middle class gets screwed as a result.
@Penn95 I’m not convinced that is true. You can still get substantial financial aid with incomes up to $140K. That puts you in the top couple percent in the country. And most FA is financed from endowment income.
The “middle class” seems to be a very elastic term. An annual income of $140-150K (indeed $100K) doesn’t make you middle class when you consider what the average income in the country is. And then there is equity etc.
At the same time, Penn is providing more financial aid to more people on the whole. Percentages matter but total impact is also extremely significant when it comes to providing opportunities to the socioeconomically disadvantaged. It’s incredible that Penn provides financial aid to 46% of its undergraduate population. If each Penn class has 2400 students and the whole undergraduate student body is therefore 9600 students, then that means that 4,416 students at Penn receive some type of financial aid. That’s more than the entire undergraduate enrollment at Dartmouth. And that’s about 80% of of Yale’s undergraduate enrollment. The average Penn grant is also slightly more than the average Yale grant despite the fact that Yale has double Penn’s endowment. Penn is making an ivy league education more affordable for a much broader swath of students than its peers and it does so with relatively fewer resources. There’s definitely room for improvement but Penn is at the forefront of making an ivy league education accessible for all.
@exlibris97 Substantial aid?? We have an income of $80K and received ZERO aid from Penn …because of assets… Penn uses the CAS and among other things looks at your home value - if you have paid off your home they expect you to take out a home equity loan to cover tuition. Using income as a barometer as to whether middle class receives aid at Penn is deceiving. If you are leveraged to the hilt and make 100K you might get aid, but if you paid off your home and have savings, our experience is you won’t get any aid.
I agree with @Penn95 that a doughnut hole is created. I have seen many in our area pass up the ivies for merit money at honors programs. My son would have done the same but for the fact that he was accepted into Wharton. Our family felt the income potential coming out of Wharton was worth going into debt for…but I do think there is a upper limit point to that.
Many of full-pay families are struggling to pay the insane bill. It is not right to force them to pay more and use part of it to increase financial aid, and brag about it.
@runswimyoga You answered your own question. You admit you have substantial assets. I fail to see why families with substantial assets should not be expected to make use of those, including home equity. Many families have no such assets.
As for Wharton, the income benefits from going there are massive. Sorry, I find it hard to be very sympathetic. By almost any measure, you do not have significant demonstrated aid. And no one is forcing you to attend Penn. What’s wrong with your local flagship state university if you find Penn’s tuition too onerous.
Agree with @exlibris97. My D is a junior, we get a $44K grant on abour $119K income. We have no other assets - no investments, other homes, or accounts. They give to those who have no other sources of income.