<p>If the article has an "agenda," it's to speak for the poor.</p>
<p>"Mini I am not a student of Economics. However, let me start with Duke, U of Chicago and U Washington at St Louis are offering merit aid on a limited basis to boost their numbers. The higher the prices, the higher the demand does not hold true in the case of Concorde Flights. It is not holding true in the case of department stores, which are almost closed, as they cannot compete against Wal-Mart and Target stores."</p>
<p>It's because Concorde Flights never were considered "prestige" goods. No one could wear a Concorde flight on a chain around their necks for the next decade (like they can a fancy college admission.) So the incremental value of saved time (especially as it became harder and harder to get in and out of airports) did not equal the incremental cost, and demand went down.</p>
<p>Prestige department stores? Isn't that an oxymoron?</p>
<p>My kid has one of those merit awards (they only gave out 5) at Smith. They give 'em out to snare kids from the Ivies, or so they say. They figure (I don't quite know how) that in the long run, it will increase their prestige. We aren't complaining! ;)</p>
<p>To me, the funniest examples of prestige rising with prices in colleges are NYU and George Washington. When I was in high school in the 60s, NYU was literally the high-priced safety school for those who couldn't get into City College of New York (or Queens or Brooklyn Colleges). Folks commiserated with others who were "condemned" to attend. But by raising prices still further, and promoting itself as the "New York" experience for those who couldn't get into Columbia, NYU created a prestige niche for wealthier out-of-staters. George Washington was a similar story - in my high school class (Stuy), GW was definitely the school for the bottom quarter of the class (again, couldn't get into CCNY). They did a great job of repackaging themselves as the government and politics school, upping tuition massively, and attracting lobbyist/former Congressperson types to teach part-time. It was great strategy.</p>
<p>Creating prestige is hard work! (Winning athletics, as Georgeown discovered, can help an awful lot.) As prices go up, the number of applications rises, and will likely continue to do so until tuition at least outstrips "net costs". Since the number of top 5%ers who could theoretically fill the seats (and rich internationals) will continue to expand, there is no theoretical limit as to how high sticker price can go, or at least none that any economist I know of is willing to predict. However, prestige would decline (at least theoretically) if no one paid full sticker price, so there is a limit to the use of"merit" awards.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If the article has an "agenda," it's to speak for the poor.
[/quote]
No question about it. That's its agenda.</p>
<p>My personal opinion on merit awards is to absolutely continue them. After all, the main purpose of college is to encourage academic excellence, promote intellectual curiousity, further research, show creativity. The very top applicants at any school in those categories deserve to be wooed and courted. Also throw in some factors that the school feels they need to build a vibrant community, complete that orchestra, keep the teams competitive, bring in some sparkle. It makes absolute sense to "go for" the kids you want the most regardless of their need. Having read about your D, Mini, I certainly do not begrudge or blame Smith for giving her a merit award. I applaud them and wonder why she isn't getting a full ride. And I would feel the same way if she were a Rockefellow scion. What a student like that, or a number of students like that add to the college community is ever so valuable. </p>
<p>Where I have a problem is with some of these "scholarships" or "merit" awards that are given purely on a pragmatic basis. A student who is truly mediocre or really not in the upper echelon of applicants but play a part in a need aware admissions policy are not only offered admissions, but for financial reason are awarded some sort of merit award at the expense of more qualified applicants. The sneaky part of this occurs as the school claims to be need blind or only need aware for a low percentage of the application for admissions, which is technically true but they are being need aware in giving out merit awards. The poor kid who needs $25K+ to go there is short sheeted on aid and so why bother to give him the $5000 merit award that isn't likely to make a dent in his need package, give it to the kid who doesn't have the need, and isn't likely to get merit money but would be a good likely candidate to snag as his parents could easily pay the remaining tuition (plus if there are gpa requirements to that $5k it is going to be back in the scholarship pool next year to snag another such candidate). Get the game? That is how the merit aid to non-needy students is hurting the needy ones, some of whom deserve that money more than those who are getting it. </p>
<p>Someone I know has a son who has about a 1300 on the SAT but is really more of B-C student, and definitely a dicey student. Yet he has gotten "merit", "citizenship", community service awards from a number of his schools. When he spoke with the one school that did not offer him a dime and brought up the fact that the school was the most expensive and did not give him money as other schools did, they immediately sweetened the pot. And he is NOT one of their top catches, I assure you.</p>
<p>I still find it hilariously funny that Masa at Dickinson is promoting himself as some sort of anti-Merit guru. As I have said before, Dickinson has been one of the worst offenders of using merit money to boost its stats. They're the ones who got themselves into this - once you start offering merit money, word gets out and it's awfully hard to stop offering it.</p>
<p>Now, Dickinson has another problem: they can't seem to boost their diversity quota. So, they're changing their tune, and acting as if someone FORCED them to go around offering merit money for the past decade. Merit money saved Dickinson from going down the tubes (which it was in danger of doing just a few years ago) by allowing them to attract quality paying students by offering a merit "discount." Nothing wrong with that, but crying about it now is like crying about getting pregnant after you've had sex without birth control: if you didn't want to get pregnant, you should have planned ahead. :)</p>
<p>Sorry, but this is all just more marketing-jumbo and I doubt we'll be seeing the demise of merit awards any time soon, at Dickinson or any where else. Less selective schools NEED merit awards more than they don't to keep their seats filled with students who can pay $35,000 a year.</p>
<p>I perused a nearly unbearable thread yesterday where people were asked to list the total amount of "merit" aid they received from all schools. Fully agree with Jamimom about the logic and value of merit aid to colleges who need to build their classes into what they want, but the widespread use of modest discounts to not-all-that-meritorious students to give their parents bragging rights at parties (as the Temple guy says) comes at a very real cost to other institutional and cultural goals, to sat nothing of to the genuinely needy applicants.</p>
<p>Someone in the article deplores the "commodification" of higher ed, and I have to say that I feel that it's a sad fact of life. How many times have I heard choosing a college compared to buying a car on these boards. The assertion is almost never challenged. Or, "a college is a business, we are the customers." No one disagrees. These are half-truths, less than half. Well, we get what we deserve.</p>
<p>"Having read about your D, Mini, I certainly do not begrudge or blame Smith for giving her a merit award. I applaud them and wonder why she isn't getting a full ride."</p>
<p>Well, they did (actually, a little more than tuition), but that's beside the point. The reality is that, within the limits of their need-based commitment, virtually all colleges have some form of merit aid. Swarthmore has a program to take its 25 most desirable applicants, and beefs up the grants and elminates the loans. Williams has the Tyng bequests, which pays for 3 years of GRADUATE school on top of the scholarship. Following the anti-trust suit settlement, the Ivies are back falling over each other with awards. Colleges will do what it takes to attract the candidates they want, and keep them from the competition.</p>
<p>If you give a $5k merit award, and full cost is $44k, you make it up by cost increases by the time the student is a senior (at 5% increase per year, the total is now $50.9k - and the school comes out ahead!) The student's parents feel great about the $20k scholarship, and the school got a virtually full-fare customer. It is not likely that the funds were taken away from the really needy applicant. Rather, the $5k/year was likely taken away from an upper middle class applicant who would have been given a paltry sum of need-based aid.</p>
<p>In its diversity report that came out last week, Williams noted that only 10% of the student body comes from the bottom 40% of the population economically, while more than 70% come from the highest quintile. What this means is that there is a higher percentage of upper income folks (from the top 20%) receiving need-based aid than low-income folks. So one could think of it as ALL merit aid, and it likely wouldn't look much different (and I'm sure the college thinks of it just that way. "Need-blind" is good marketing, but as the data already suggest, and the Admissisons Dean at Williams essentially admits, it's all a hoax anyway.)</p>
<p>I am in favour of merit aid to anyone. If the school wants to attract better students by paying some of the outrageous college costs, that's fine with me and even more fine if they are selecting based on merit.</p>
<p>College costs are way out of line. Does anyone out there really believe that you get a better education at Harvard than at, say, University of Toronto? The 45 thousand you pay at Harvard is entirely for perceived prestige - the top colleges take advantage of our need for a feeling of superiority.</p>
<p>Some weeks ago, someone posted a link to an article entitled Economic Challenges for Liberal Arts Colleges by Michael S. McPherson and Morton Owen Schapiro. It has an excellent explanation on pps. 56-66 of just how the economics play out for merit vs. need based aid, how such grants effect SATs scores a school can report, and why the colleges discount, along with a scenario for Conjectural University, to make it more clear. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/%5B/url%5D">www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/</a> daedalus/mcpherson_article.pdf</p>
<p>Worth a look if you are interested in such topics.</p>
<p>Where is the proof that raising a school's average SAT score 5pts gives it a "better" class.</p>
<p>Wishing were april, I couldn't access that link. Is there any other way of seeing that article?
Thanks for the post.
P.S. Hope your month has been great!</p>
<p>It's being discussed right now on this thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=58015%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=58015</a></p>
<p>Try this - I copied it from google but it apparently had an extra space there. I believe this one works.</p>
<p>And yes, it was a very good month! But as my son seems to have a bad case of senioritis that is making both of us miserable, I now wish it was August!</p>