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<p>I think that loans in generally are responsible for a good chunk of the rise in college tuition. If you increase the supply of money, the price will go up</p>
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<p>Well, what does this have to do with anything? People will pay for these institutions differently than they will pay for the middle of the road privates, and comparing the situations would just be irrational. </p>
<p>Also, when you have institutions which offer need based aid to anyone making under 180,000 a year? I’m not sure if it’s not just “merit aid” for the entire student body, since all the students have that kind of merit.</p>
<p>I believe we need low cost affordable educational opportunities for everyone in this country. But, I think finding yet another way to cut out rewards for hard work is not wise. At all. We cannot continue to priveledge the impoverished over the middle class in ways that cut out all opportunities for advancement. All that said, my personal opinion is that these schools believe people should be willing to give up more money for a four year education than they will be willing to spend, or should be willing to spend, frankly.</p>
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<p>You need excellent stats to get into these schools so you have to “merit” getting in. So you could say that there is implicit merit aid.</p>
<p>Why do some privates feel that all privates have to do this? </p>
<p>Each private has a different situation. Those with big endowments can afford to go along with this. Those with smaller endowments need the flexibility to do what they need to do.</p>
<p>Besides…look at schools like HYPS. Those 4 schools give only “need based aid”, but since they give SUPER AID (way beyond normal “need”) and only accept top students, then they are essentially giving merit to all who get aid.</p>
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<p>exactly…</p>
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But who should pay for that access? That’s the question. Merit aid forces less academically accomplished students to subsidize those who are more accomplished–even if they are in the same economic tier. There are market reasons colleges do this, and arguably everybody benefits.</p>
<p>I think, at this level of the educational ladder, the benefits of merit aid far outweigh the cost. But, I suppose the administrators are endlessly hopeful that they can get people to borrow yet more money to fund their escalating salaries.</p>
<p>I mean, the whole thing sounds so “altruistic,” but it isn’t, if you delve into the economics. The underlying economics say, “Let’s get these people to pay.” Not: let’s get more impoverished students. JMO</p>
<p>*If Nugent spoke with a hint of frustration in her voice, it was because she so clearly thinks that most presidents know in their hearts that what theyre doing isnt in the long-term interests of their institutions or of students.
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<p>Oh brother. :rolleyes: psychobabble</p>
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<p>[Sherman</a> Antitrust Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act]Sherman”>Sherman Antitrust Act - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Colleges basically want to charge more to customers that can pay it (let’s ignore what they want to do with the money). If only some of the suppliers collude to do this (raise prices), then other suppliers will get more business, especially from the people with higher stats that colleges want as it helps their marketing. So you need a cartel with everyone keeping prices high so that the consumer doesn’t have any choice.</p>
<p>You also want to keep the barriers to entry high so that some group doesn’t start up a new company with lower prices.</p>
<p>I think that this is why this group needs the Justice Department on board as what they’re doing seems illegal.</p>
<p>Merit aid forces less academically accomplished students to subsidize those who are more accomplished</p>
<p>You’re assuming that the merit is coming from other students’ tuition. That is not likely the case. Many times merit comes from donors.</p>
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Money is fungible.</p>
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<p>Not if there are strings attached.</p>
<p>But the article states that merit aid mostly influences WHERE students go to college, not WHETHER. </p>
<p>I guess I would ask the CC community to evaluate whether merit aid has contributed to the ‘high sticker price/more discount model’ of college pricing and if it has, to what extent.</p>
<p>I think that it is ridiculous to cut merit aid. The middle class will be in even more of a bind. The only reason I will be able to afford to go to a good school is if I get merit aid. I’m in the typical middle class FA situation- too “rich” to get FA but too poor to afford college.</p>
<p>And I do think that while it is easier for affluent kids to get high SAT scores and grades because they can get tutors, it is not only them. I did not get tutored at all for the SAT or for classes I struggled in. For the SAT I purchased a $20 book from Barnes and Noble, and studied from the book, and made copies of practice tests from my friends Collegeboard BlueBook. While affluent kids are definitely at an advantage for merit aid, they will most likely go elsewhere because they can afford to go to a more prestigious school. Merit aid is one of the few solutions for high achieving middle class students.</p>
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<p>We’re really talking about price. So yes, price matters. As do other factors like location, quality, size, etc. I think that at some level, there are parents that are going to provide an undergraduate education for their kids but I think that the vast majority do consider price.</p>
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<p>I think that need-based aid is a bigger contributor though more of my experience has been with public universities. Son’s public has explicitly stated that they have been raising prices so that they could 1) deal with state cutbacks and 2) increase need-based aid. They’re proud of doing that and I’d guess that this happens at other state universities too.</p>
<p>*Quote:
You’re assuming that the merit is coming from other students’ tuition. That is not likely the case. Many times merit comes from donors.</p>
<p>Money is fungible.
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<p>Not always. Often money is donated for a particular purpose. The donor may have an interest in funding more female engineers or funding more creative writers or funding more high stats students. </p>
<p>Either way, if the money is coming from donors then it’s not coming from other students’ tuition. The full-payer is paying for his student, while a donor and a student’s family is paying for the high stats kid.</p>
<p>I wonder how much of this has to do with the generation of kids that has always gotten a trophy for everything is now in college. Johnny got merit aid and I didn’t, THATS NOT FAIR…nevermind the other kid had a 2.5 GPA and a 19 ACT compared to a 3.7/33…</p>
<p>There have been a couple threads about this over the past several months and for those kids that really qualified for MERIT aid, their net cost still ended up being about the same because the schools also reduced the COA as well. It also benefits those that are full pay or close to full pay but don’t qualify for merit or not as big of awards because the overall cost is less. One school was 40,000 to start, gave up to 20,000 in merit, reduced the COA to 30,000 and gave up to 10,000 in merit. Net cost is still 20,000 (approx numbers for easy math :D).</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with schools taking away merit awards IF they are going to increase the financial aid side–grants though, not just tacking on more loans, similar to what Dickinson did (and the Ivys). Even without “merit aid” Dickinson is pretty affordable for a lot of people, even people not getting financial aid elsewhere.</p>
<p>I’m not sure this means that with the elimination of merit aid, the current sticker prices are going to stay where they are. They use merit aid to attract students:</p>
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<p>So how, with the elimination of merit aid, would these schools attract students? You have to figure that something else would have to give.</p>
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<p>Because they realize that if they raise prices (which is essentially what this is), but the guy down the street doesnt then they will lose business. Whether you are a sub shop, or in steel production, if you want to push through a price increase in a market with static demand you are going to have to fall back on collusion or price fixing.</p>
<p>If a private tries to go it alone, they will have a crash in the best students that will be willing to attend, which will hurt the institutions rankings. Or they can try to play up to full pays with amenities and prestige, but there only a limited number of schools that can pull that off. </p>
<p>Newton wants to put the squeeze on families that could be full pay but dont see any reason to mortgage the house since their kid is a scholar and attracting a lot of interest from competing schools. If a consortium of college conspires to take hundreds of merit seats off the market that will drive up net tuition. If a student applies to only 6 schools and half are in the consortium, that means the other three will take up some of the merit slack, but in doing so they will have to reduce their own merit awards.</p>