<p>I don’t see how it does that. We’ve worked and saved, enough to be full-pays at any college in the country. I don’t feel I’m being punished when need-based aid allows the son or daughter of someone less financially blessed–someone, say, from the bottom 95% in income and assets–to sit alongside my daughter in a college seminar room. In fact, I think my daughter’s college experience is enriched by having classmates from all parts of the socioeconomic spectrum, and not all top 5%-ers like her. </p>
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<p>Well, they mostly reward GPAs and standardized test scores, which is a pretty narrow measure of academic achievement, with the latter component (standardized test scores) tending to operate as a better predictor of socioeconomic status than of ultimate college success. So you might say they tend to reward high socioeconomic status, but mostly for those willing to cash in at the not-quite-elite institutions that offer the most merit aid.</p>
There’s an implicit assumption this argument depends on that I’d challenge, that the student body makeup would be the same with or without the merit scholarships. Merit pay offers high-score kids a discount to attend, but would they still attend if they were full pay? After all the reason they took the bait in the first place is they were price-sensitive shoppers. Take away the discount and perhaps that student goes away and is replaced with another one with substantial need, in the end subtracting from the amount that can go to other students.</p>
<p>I would also like my kid to sit alongside kids from a wide socioeconomic spectrum. But I would like those kids be academic achievers. If they are academic achievers then they will qualify for merit aid, no matter their family income.</p>
<p>I find it ironic that the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities has a problem with the fact that my son was financially rewarded for his academic achievements while seemingly not having a care in the world about football players are also financially rewarded for their physical prowess.</p>
<p>What is the point of college? Is it to play good football?</p>
<p>The coupling of sports with a university education is IMHO one of the strangest things this country does. You want to get a blank and somewhat disturb stare from a European…try to explain this…it is easier to explain our gun laws.</p>
<p><a href=“From%20Beliavsky”>quote</a>
Need-based financial aid punishes families for working and saving. </p>
<p>(From bclintonk)
I don’t see how it does that. We’ve worked and saved, enough to be full-pays at any college in the country. I don’t feel I’m being punished when need-based aid allows the son or daughter of someone less financially blessed–someone, say, from the bottom 95% in income and assets–to sit alongside my daughter in a college seminar room. In fact, I think my daughter’s college experience is enriched by having classmates from all parts of the socioeconomic spectrum, and not all top 5%-ers like her.
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<p>Like bclintonk, we’ve worked hard and are blessed to be able to be full-pay at two elite schools. I would consider it a personal moral failing in myself if I were to feel annoyed or resentful that part of my money likely goes to help someone less financially fortunate. I want to be a person of substance, and I think a person of substance cares about more than just his or her pocketbook.</p>
<p>LOL. My D1 goes to a top LAC that offers only need-based aid. Everyone there is an “academic achiever.” If they aren’t, they’re not admitted. Simple as that. The school doesn’t need merit aid to attract top students; they come for the academics, not for the money. But the point of need-based aid is that no high-achieving student who is admitted on merit and wants to attend is barred from doing so by cost.</p>
<p>I think you’re imagining a fictional college where all the students are high academic achievers, and all get merit aid. I don’t believe such a college exists. The schools that give the most merit aid generally have a relatively small percentage of high academic achievers, and find it cost-effective to direct financial aid toward attracting and retaining that select few; but that comes at the cost of meeting need for their median student who has need but doesn’t qualify for merit aid. It troubles me that this often (though not always) involves an effective redistribution of resources from lower SES to higher SES students, but I understand that others are untroubled and are happy to go for the cash.</p>
<p>Not true, because it assumes that all rich parents are willing to pay the list price. Many are not, and I do not blame them. Compare a simple need-based model where a college charges $60K for the 50% of its matriculants it deems rich and nothing for the poor to a flat-price model is to charging everyone $30K. The need-based model enables some poor kids to attend but bars some rich kids with frugal parents. The flat price model bars poor kids but enables some rich kids with frugal parents (those willing to pay $30K but not $60K) to attend. I favor something closer to the flat price model, but reasonable people can disagree.</p>
<p>I greatly dislike the concept of merit aid and the sense of entitlement and self-victimization it breeds in people who are far more fortunate than most, so this is great news as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>Hopefully, this will help to eliminate the practices of gapping aid-seeking students and including loans in need-based aid packages.</p>
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<p>Then those students can blame their parents, not the institution. If I wanted a pony and my parents refused to pay for one despite being able to afford it, I wouldn’t blame the nearest stable for refusing to sell cheap ponies.</p>
<p>For a need based only model to work, colleges outside of the elite would need to become more realistic about the market value of their product. Put simply, not every college that charges $50k in tuition is a $50k value. That is the economic reality that tuition discounting via merit scholarship is actually reflecting.</p>
<p>That is a fair point. For that to happen, the US government will need to start subsidizing state universities more heavily–and a lot of private schools will probably have to merge, change their missions completely, or cease to exist.</p>
<p>No, but as a society we consider education a different kind of good - a human capital investment – in a way we don’t for ponies.
Well, maybe I do. You don’t. It’s all about you and yours. Do you vote yes on school tax increases if your kids aren’t in public schools? My guess is no.</p>
<p>In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been talking about the US. bclintonk is absolutely right. Like his daughter, my kids attend top schools that do not give merit aid. The kids there are academic achievers. No one need worry that the bottom of the barrel is being scraped anywhere even if (horrors) some students are (double horrors) poor.</p>