<p>yes, I think it probably comes from the fact that we have a taxpayer funded public k-12, and many around here see college as necessary to life. Very few, besides my father in law, feel a Mercedes is necessary to life. ;)</p>
<p>Still, you are right.</p>
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<p>And Mercedes…or their authorized representative will sell you, and me and Skippy or anyone else regardless of their life story that very same car for that very same price. And, your loan (if needed) will be structured based on your financial history - of the past many many years, not just the last 12 months.</p>
<p>Food is a basic requirement for life. It would be interesting if Whole Foods - a luxury store - had you give your 1040 (plus any supporting documentation, ask you about trust accounts, business assets and whether or not your siblings were currently holding any assets to which you might hold partial claim) at the cash register. Then, after inputting the data and running it through a secretive system which takes gender, race, SES and your ability to push a shopping cart up a hill into account…comes up with your total amount. My guess is there would be an outrage and a line of organizations fighting to take this inequality to court.</p>
<p>And…there would soon be a National Shopping Cart Pushing Up the Hill League which will represent and market all champion Shopping Cart Pushers. 
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Yeah, and the car analogy falls apart when Huckleberry also gets a Mercedes, despite his poor SES. </p>
<p>We could actually make a somewhat better case for food, since Huck also gets subsidized with food stamps, which discount the price of his food. Not done by the institutions themselves (grocery stores) but by the government. In the college case, the government subsidy (Pell, TAP) is not enough or does not cover enough people to satisfy what the institution wants, so they have to add in even more.</p>
<p>^^^ Valid points. My bottom line on the whole thing is…it is what it is…an unfair, unbalanced and discriminatory approach to funding Higher Education. AND…this is what the general 'WE" want, accept and encourage. And which “we” have been conditioned to reposition both in our own heads and on a societal level as fair and good.</p>
<p>Caveat Emptor…I personally don’t give a hoot what an individual chooses or how a private institution structures their finances. What concerns me is the ‘eyes wide shut’ approach taken by those least able to bear the future consequences of today’s bad financial choices.</p>
<p>PS…If Huck gets the Mercedes and then defaults on the loan…well…say hello to repo man. It’s hard to repo a brain.</p>
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<p>But they are giving the same car away to your neighbor for free.</p>
<p>^Analogies are so hard to uphold. If Huck defaults on his car loan he can go into bankruptcy and get it discharged for some lesser amount. Not so his college loans, apparently, which will stick to him through thick, thin, and death.</p>
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This is exactly it. Housing is also a basic need. Should the same house go for free to some and at a high list price to others?</p>
<p>I think the accepted correlative in the consumer purchase arena is the airfare pricing.</p>
<p>People on any given plane do pay differing amounts, right down to the fact that most airlines give out compassion fares for the bereaved flying to a parents’ funeral.</p>
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<p>Which is what most lower-middle class and working/low-income families are already doing anyways. </p>
<p>And they often do it with little/no safety nets from family or network of friends should anything go wrong. </p>
<p>Moreover, such families are much more likely to discourage academically marginal students from going on to college or to do so with the proviso that if they screwed up (i.e. GPAs less than a 2.x), the onus is on them to get out of the house and find a job/enlist in the military. </p>
<p>The last bit about joining the military happened to several neighborhood kids and a colleague who admitted “drinking away his scholarships”.</p>
<p>Private colleges want to reduce merit aid</p>
<p>and car companies want to reduce financial incentives as well. (Not sure how Mercedes was introduced into the conversation but the fact is that car companies routinely resort to financial incentives, discounts, rebates to sell their product.)</p>
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<p>But the airlines do not review your financial, social and personal situation before determining which amount you will pay. They do not deem me more in need of a cheap fare than you. Instead…it’s a first come first served situation. </p>
<p>If you wanted to make that analogy you’d have to open a ‘college seat purchasing’ website. On any certain day, ANYONE can log on, see what is available and decide to purchase if for a clearly stated price. If ‘you’ are able to pay for that seat, at that price and are willing to commit right then and there…it’s yours.</p>
<p>And, when car companies offer incentives…they are equally available to everyone. They do not have you come in with your tax forms and then determine which end price they will put on the vehicle. They DO check your credit and financial history…but not only for the past 12 months but going back many many years, in order to determine the loan offering.</p>
<p>Not to get OT but poetgrl, there are not as many bereavement fares as you would think and they are not usually the cheapest fares…
[Which</a> Airlines Offer Bereavement Fares? | Bankrate.com](<a href=“http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/airlines-offer-bereavement-fares.aspx]Which”>Which Airlines Offer Bereavement Fares? | Bankrate.com)</p>
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<p>Well, since this is actually our business…we rent to students near a major university…let’s run with the scenario. Let’s say I ( a private entity) decides to require tax forms and personal statements from all applicants. I then look at my existing tenants and decide I am missing ‘X’ type of renter. ‘X" has been deemed by the social mores to be deserving of special treatment. So, I decide to offer "X’ and “X” type applicants a reduced rent. Not only that, I choose them over and above other applicants who applied earlier and whose submitted information would lead a statistician to conclude they would be more suited. It should, according to the University structure be not only perfectly legal (after all I am a private institution and I get to distribute my funds as I see fit and I get to pick the demographic I choose to subsidize) it is actually the moral imperative. All must be represented in my tenant population. </p>
<p>And yet, I can guarantee were I to implement the above process I would be hauled into court for discrimination faster than you an say…THAT"S NOT FAIR!</p>
<p>"But the airlines do not review your financial, social and personal situation before determining which amount you will pay. They do not deem me more in need of a cheap fare than you. Instead…it’s a first come first served situation. "</p>
<p>I don’t think you know anything about how frequent flyer programs work. They most certainly find a frequent flyer like me more “important” for the provision of upgrades and perks.</p>
<p>Pizza, that analogy would result in large families getting discounts (in the hopes of getting more students), not poor families.</p>
<p>dietz - while you might charge the same rent, that doesn’t mean your tennants will be the ones paying the rent. They might have a government subsidy, and in fact pay lower rent than your other tennants.</p>
<p>The end of my street is the beginning of a series buildings owned by our local housing authority. Rent is set for each of those tennants based on their income - and yes, they do submit their tax returns and other documents every year. The Housing authority is a non-profit organization set up to run such housing. The daycare center around the corner is a non-profit that uses a sliding scale fee to set the fees for their clients - some pay as little as $20 a week, others $150 a week - it all depends on their income, which again is verified.</p>
<p>Non-profit medical clinics often operate in the same manner. Planned Parenthood charges a nominal fee for birth control pills if you are low income, more if you can afford it.</p>
<p>Why shouldn’t private colleges - which are also non profit organizations - be able to set their prices the same way? </p>
<p>As for merit aid, if they believe that a top student is more likely to graduate and end up supporting the school in the future, rather than be a drain on resources, why shouldn’t they be able to provide an incentive to attend their school? What future donations will result from that $1000 merit scholarship?</p>
<p>Only an idiot would “prefer” to be poor just to get reduced cost services for Planned Parenthood. Only an idiot “resents” aid to the needy. Feel free to make yourself poor for all the supposed perks.</p>
<p>Well Pizzagirl…great way to shut down a conversation…which I guess is the desired end. Name calling…wow…that is discouraged and socially frowned upon by the enlightened…even in the kindergarten sandbox. What was it my kiddles pre-school teachers used to say…we can use friendship making or friendship breaking word. </p>
<p>And, more of the ugly and angry insides of the insult hurler is brought to light than is anything about the motives or intelligence of the intended recipient.</p>
<p>Well, JandJ, that’s a shame. It’s too bad airplanes are too full to offer bereavement any longer.</p>
<p>Well, how about this, then…</p>
<p>I am a frequent flyer and my husband is an even more, weekly, frequent flyer. We get all sorts of merit aid for this. And, yes, they do care more about him than they do about me, and they care more about me than they do about the youngest who has less miles than me since she hasn’t started to fly back and forth from school. etc…</p>
<p>He is the big donor and I’m the little donor. </p>
<p>But, we’ve also got all sorts of prices in between and if you are willing to look on some of those websites they have, you can get really good deals, or so my oldest, the compuslive shopper would tell you.</p>
<p>And then, I suppose, there are those who have to take the train or go by car. </p>
<p>In the end, though, we all get there.</p>
<p>But, and this is material to the actual conversation, anybody who resents financial aid for the pell eligible has no real foresight. If you think in a country with a decreasing population you will be better off aging with a less educated and not a more educated population, you are not thinking it through. In the end, compassion and the wish for all to do well aside, we would be much better off if we had a system in place in which those entitled to Pell were asked only to pay that amount to attend college.</p>
<p>All of us will be better off, including the big donors, who all, mostly, happen to KNOW this, btw.</p>
<p>I think the Pell grant calculation Poetgrl uses is interesting and valid. A strict SES evaluation and awarding of funds seems not only reasonable, but also prudent. As such, applications should not ask for gender, ethnicity, family configuration, status, etc. SES is quantifiable and non subjective evaluation criteria.</p>