<p>Much ado about nothing! I boldly predict that nothing is going to change. Schools that are successfully using merit awards to increase the GPA/SAT scores of their incoming class, or to help fix the male/female ratio at a STEM school etc. are **not **going to change. They will always do what is in the best interest of their particular institution. I think getting college presidents to agree on anything is like herding cats ;-)</p>
<p>SteveMA</p>
<p>I did a NPC for an institution with 50K and 150K, both with the same merit award, and got the following:</p>
<p>50K: Net Price 18,720
150K Net Price 27,720</p>
<p>There’s a link in the original article to another article that states the followig:</p>
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<p>I just ran the NPC at one of the schools our DD applied to. I put in a family income of 40K with no real assets. I put in a 3.3 GPA with a 23 ACT knowing that was outside of their merit awards. Got a NP of $12,643 including loans and work study. Now, I also know this school stacks merit so, if this same family had a student with a 3.6 and a 26+ ACT, that student would be attending this college for free. Their base merit award is $12,000. Our DD got their highest merit award, $20,000 but no financial aid so our net price would be $27,000. You really think there is no benefit to being a lower income family?</p>
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<p>I don’t think that they really have a plan. Perhaps they hope to keep some of those families that see value in a private education. Perhaps they will expand the definition of need. Perhaps they hope that public university prices will continue rising given continuing state cutbacks.</p>
<p>They are trying to circumvent the market which generally doesn’t work in the long run unless you have the force of law behind you. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t think this out very deeply.</p>
<p>Do you really think college is more affordable for the 40K family with a NP of 12, 643that includes loans? </p>
<p>I’m not saying that the price is not less, just that it’s hard for the 40K family to do it even with FA.</p>
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<p>I did read what you posted. That’s why I posted a link that provides
median household income by county by the whole state. Living off $77K
for a family of 4 isn’t that hard in Lowell, MA. You can get a nice,
remodeled 2-bedroom apartment for $1K/month.</p>
<p>People will assume that you live in MA unless you state otherwise. Perhaps you’d like to provide your state so that most wouldn’t assume that you’re from MA which is implied by your username.</p>
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<p>Why do you need to own?</p>
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<p>What’s the city or town? Could you find something for a lot less within
50 miles?</p>
<p>When I see the term middle class, I look at the middle 33% or middle
50%. I can anlyze those numbers at the state or county level. There are
higher COL states but I would really like to see numbers where $120K
is in the middle-third or even the middle-half.</p>
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<p>Well this is a great system. Strip the family of assets to pay for an education that, on average, will earn an income of less than $77K. </p>
<p>And around and around we go.</p>
<p>*Certainly, some donations have strings, but if they don’t, it doesn’t really make sense to say that merit aid is coming from donations, while full pay students are just paying for themselves. The use of those donations for merit aid means that they can’t be used to reduce tuition for everybody.
*</p>
<p>Reducing tuition for everyone often doesn’t make good business sense because the reduction is too small to make any significant difference. </p>
<p>If a school has 5000 students, and the school’s endowment gains or donations ($1M) allows for either $10k merit scholarships for 100 top students or reducing everyone’s tuition by $200, then reducing everyone’s tuition by $200 would be silly and meaningless.</p>
<p>BCEagle91–owning a house, in the USA, is a middle class standard, that is why owning is part of what should define middle class, not just how much you make. As for finding something for less 50 miles out, sure you could, but the cost of the commute would offset the cost of the house. 50 miles is not a reasonable commute here like it is in some areas. If you lived 50 miles out and worked 50 miles out, the COL would be less and the income needed to live a middle class lifestyle would go down.</p>
<p>Again, it’s not ONLY about how much you make but about the lifestyle that income can buy. The middle income here is about 90,000, but like I said, trying buying a middle priced house for that. Heck, the lowest price house on the market in our area is @255,000 for a 3 bedroom rambler/ranch that is in SERIOUS need of work–not just a new paint job work but paint, new roof, new flooring, everything.</p>
<p>Much ado about nothing! I boldly predict that nothing is going to change. Schools that are successfully using merit awards to increase the GPA/SAT scores of their incoming class, or to help fix the male/female ratio at a STEM school etc. are not going to change. They will always do what is in the best interest of their particular institution. I think getting college presidents to agree on anything is like herding cats 
</p>
<p>Exactly, because there’s not a “one size fits all” scenario. Any agreed upon scenario would give some schools an advantage while handicapping others. </p>
<p>Balancing male/female ration is a very good example. University presidents know that as the male/female ratio becomes more imbalanced at their schools, it becomes a domino effect, so they want to impede that as much as possible…often thru merit awards to the sought-after gender. </p>
<p>This can become very self-serving. College presidents that fear that some “up-start colleges” may encroach upon their ranking positions by improving the test scores of their incoming frosh class’s middle quartiles would certainly support a “no-merit” agreement. By cloaking their agendas with a “we care about the poor” face, they can seem benevolent when they’re really in self-protection mode.</p>
<p>Stevema, there are niches where being in a low income family is great for kid applying to college. Take a kid with great GPA, near perfect test scores, a mover and shaker at the school with recs galore from teachers and counselors, and say, a hook like debate talent, and that kid may well be accepted to a highly desired school with a full ride if the family is low income, or with an expected contribution that is doable. Kid can tell the parents to jump in the lake if they don’t want to pay a dime (which the calculations are saying they can’t anyways) or don’t support the college at all. It’s, “Good By, folks”/ Same situation, but make in a high income or high enough income family that just won’t pay because they have too many finanical problems and they don’t want to give the life style or throw in a parent that just doesn’t feel like paying money for college is something s/he wants to do. Not much recourse here unless the kid finds enough merit money to pay full freight or close to it. Can’t flame the parents, since one of the likely options would be staying local and living off of them for a while longer.</p>
<p>Now you start lowering the acadmmic stats, and the picture changes a lot more. More kids in the upper income families are going to have more options. Not every high/middle income family shuts down spending for college, wheras in the lower income there is not the choice when there are insuffficent funds to even live day to day. You get kids, and I know many of them who are B, C and lower students with decidedly average test scores, going to college through herd mentality and because mom and dad are willing to pay the big bucks. If they can just get together enough to get through, they have a four year ride, or more ride, courtesy of parents, a luxury you simply are not going to see in low income familes. So, yes, a low income kid with high stats who snags a great financial aid award has that option that the same kid from a high income family who won’t support paying the family contributon, but that is a certain niceh situation.</p>
<p>For the greatest flexibility, I 'd take having the money anyways. You ca always opt to spend enough to make your income/assets equal to those whose kids are going on full financial aid if your have the money, though not something most or anyone I know wants to do. Or give it all two years before your kid goes to college and take the same chances a family without good financial has to take in getting kids thorugh college.</p>
<p>BCEagle91–another thing-don’t confuse middle “income” with “middle class” two VASTLY different things.</p>
<p>Neither the phrase “middle income” nor " middle class" mean a whole lot without context.</p>
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<p>A house is one kind of asset. That doesn’t preclude others like cash.</p>
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<p>That’s just good marketing from the real estate industry. I guess an
iPhone is a middle-class standard too. The really, really, really big
problem with what you write is in what the actual demographics are.
What are the real demographics for the middle in your state? By
income?</p>
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<p>We all have to make choices with our incomes, whether they are truly
middle-class or upper class. $120K is upper class in the vast majority
of counties in the US.</p>
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<p>The median household income in my town is $95,206 (How did that
happen, last time I looked it was a lot lower?). The cheapest condos
are under $100K and the cheapest houses and condos are about
$120K-$130K. There are small three bedroom homes under $200K.
There are mobile homes in the $40K area.</p>
<p>Who needs a middle-priced home? What do the people with real
middle-incomes pay for their homes?</p>
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<p>Why bother with the term “middle class” when it doesn’t mean middle
class? What you’re talking about is more accuratetly termed the
bottom part of the upper-class.</p>
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<p>One would assume some relationship to the middle 33% or 50% from the words.</p>
<p>As calmom used to say when these discussions came up “it is always better to have more money than less.” Seriously, it is. Run the numbers anyway you want and the family whose income is in the top 5% has more money in the end than the family whose income is “only” at the 25% much less at the 50%. You may pay more for college, true. But you still have more when all is said and done.</p>
<p>I haven’t been here that long, but aren’t most of the schools just using merit to improve their stats? I mean it was obvious to me that if my kids would consider a school with lesser stats then they possess, then they were likely to receive more merit money. It benefits my kids, and it benefits the school. Isn’t this what the prestige privates did for years by having such high pricing? Maintaining an image of affluence?</p>
<p>Yup.</p>
<p>But some colleges want to have their cake and eat it too. They just can’t make the pesky parents and students behave in the way that they want.</p>
<p>For the student, that is not the case, tha “it is always better to have more money than less”. I know kids who are green eyed monsters of jealousy at financial aid packages that their less well off classmates are getting to go away to a private school, when they are having to constrained by their parents budgets or whatever they can get in merit money. My son’t friends had to turn down several of his top choice schools, because his NCP wasn’t going to pay. He is commuting and is bitter about it. It is unfair to him that kids who are living better than he and his mom are, get much nicer financial aid packages because they are lower income, when he falls in a niche where it’s just too bad that his father refuses to pay what he can. So, there are niches where there are glaring injustices, and schools are not getting their best candates as long as they have the pay stipulation in there for the parents who may not want to spend large or any amounts of money for college. These situations do happen a lot though in the course of all of the colleges apps in a year, they are a small percentage.</p>
<p>As a parent concerned and willing to do what one can for college, it is better most of the time to have more money because you cannot order up the ideal kid who would gain acceptance to a school that will give a full need scholarship or give enough for attendng to be possible. The more you have, the more flexibility you will have for most situations, but not every. Had we had financial need, a number of choices that were off our table would have been possible. But I was not willing to divest our assets and lifestyle to the point where we would have been eligible to for full need and in fact, some of those schools were need aware and may not have accepted my son, had he been heavy duty need, as he was borderline in stats for them.</p>