The UC’s dominate the index because of their high number of Pell recipients, but of interest as well is net cost to middle-income families: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/17/upshot/top-colleges-doing-the-most-for-low-income-students.html
Some schools that people expect, but some others that many may not think of. For example, Davidson is as generous to middle-income families, on average, as HYPS.
NYU and BU are #156 and #158 out of 179 colleges listed.
The use of five year graduation rate >= 75% to select the colleges means that it is generally the most selective colleges (e.g. 3 UCs and all CSUs are not in this list). But it is students from middle and lower income families who do not have the qualifications to get into the most selective colleges who are likely to be most limited in finding affordable college options.
Financial aid has been a priority at Davidson for a while. It should be noted that it was the second college in the country to eliminate loans for all students. (Princeton was first.)
Davidson’s net price calculator at http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-financial-aid/tuition-and-fees/net-price-calculator offers a very high need ($0 parent and student income and assets) student a net price of $4,100. This comes from an institutional EFC = $2,000 and assumed on-campus job earnings of $2,100.
@ucbalumnus, why single out NYU and BU out of all the colleges on the list? I can’t tell if you singled them out to point out that they are low on the list, or to compliment them for being on the list of the top 179 most generous colleges despite the constant bashing they typically get on CC.
NYU and BU have per student endowments that are dwarfed by more generous schools. Colleges higher on the list with smaller per student endowments are generally the public schools whose prices are based on instate tuition, so they are much cheaper to start with. It’s probably not fair to mingle public and private on one list given that the public’s generosity won’t extend beyond its state borders.
I’m surprised at SMU - TCU - Bucknell - Furman, and a few others. Despite larger endowments, they are less generous to the lower and middle income students than NYU/BU.
The California school system should be the role model for every state re: how to service the educational needs of its citizenry.
Didn’t open the link…but what about Florida publics for students eligible for Bright Futures?
@thumper, why not open the link?
UF is up there with HYPSM as well.
@prospect1, I don’t believe these are the 179 most generous. These may be the only 179 with a 75% graduation rate or higher.
@thumper1 Most of Florida’s publics didn’t make the list due to the “5” year, 75% graduation rate requirement. (Edit: I guess that requirement is also what holds out the CSU’s, which in many ways have better metrics than the UC’s).
By the way, why did they pick 5 years? That’s a huge improvement over 4 years (which is what they used to create last year’s list), but I would think they would use the more standard 6 year metric…
I’m not presuming to speak for ucbalumnus, but it’s worth calling attention to NYU’s and BU’s poor showing on these metrics because they’re schools that get a lot of attention on CC. But they’re not the only ones. Schools like #136 WUSTL, #139 Boston College, #144 Wake Forest, #146 Villanova, #147 American, #148 Pitt, #151 George Washington, #152 Penn State, #153 Whitman, #154 Carnegie Mellon, #163 RPI, #165 Northeastern, #167 University of Miami, and #173 WPI are all schools that get a fair amount of attention on CC but do poorly on this index due to a combination of low numbers of Pell grant recipients in their respective student bodies and a high net cost for middle-income students.
It’s an odd index, though. The Pell grant figure is apparently supposed to be a proxy for how well these schools serve low-income students, but that’s a very incomplete metric. It would be more revealing if they combined that with net cost figures for low-income students, i.e., those from families in the $0-30K and $30K-48K income ranges. Instead the Times combines Pell grant recipients with net costs for students from families in the $30K-48K and $48K-75K range (though the only figures shown in the table are for the $48K-$75K range). To me, this is mixing apples and oranges.
It’s possible a school could have a relatively low percentage of Pell grant recipients but still be quite generous to the low-income students who do enroll. An example would be my alma mater, the University of Michigan, where only 12% of the students receive Pell grants, yet Michigan’s net cost to students from families earning <$30K is only $5,529 and for families earning $30-48K only $9,397—both well at the lower end of the scale for any university, public or private. (In contrast, at Northwestern students in the <$30K range have a net cost of $15,841, and for those in the $30K-48K range it’s $15,436, while at Wisconsin the comparable figures are $8,306 and $11,137, respectively). I wondered how it could be that Michigan is so generous to low-income students yet seems to attract so few of them, but then I recalled that 40% of Michigan’s students are OOS and until recently the university hasn’t been able to meet full need for OOS students (though it has long met full need for in-state students). That means there are likely very few OOS Pell grant recipients, i.e., Michigan’s Pell grant recipients are likely almost 100% in-state students. But if that’s the case, then the 12% of the overall student body who are Pell grant recipients would represent closer to 20% of the in-state students. And the university’s overall share of Pell grant recipients should increase as a result of its current $4 billion capital campaign, which has as its central goal raising sufficient additional endowment to meet full need for all students, including OOS students.
Focusing on the <$30K and $30K-48K brackets probably wouldn’t help most of the schools listed in the first paragraph above, however. For example, according to College Scorecard, NYU’s average net cost for students in the <$30K income bracket is $25,441, and for those in the $30K-48K bracket it’s $28,643. BU is only slightly better at an average net cost of $23,783 for those in the <$30K bracket, and $23,262 for those in the $30K-48K bracket.
@bclintock - you stated about U Michigan: “until recently the university hasn’t been able to meet full need for OOS students…”
Is U Michigan now meeting the full need for OOS? That is good to know…I will advise students accordingly. I was unaware that this was the case. It was decidedly NOT the case for the most recent spate of applicants (incoming 2015).
@bclintock:
“Schools like #136 WUSTL, #139 Boston College, #144 Wake Forest, #146 Villanova, #147 American, #148 Pitt, #151 George Washington, #152 Penn State, #153 Whitman, #154 Carnegie Mellon, #163 RPI, #165 Northeastern, #167 University of Miami, and #173 WPI are all schools that get a fair amount of attention on CC but do poorly on this index due to a combination of low numbers of Pell grant recipients in their respective student bodies and a high net cost for middle-income students.”
^^^^ And how many of these colleges have higher per-student endowments than NYU and BU? The outpouring of ire should be directed at them, not always so focused on NYU and BU.
AND, how many of the colleges deemed marginally “more generous” than NYU and BU have per-student endowments that are many multiples of NYU’s and BU’s? Looks to me like NYU and BU are doing the best they can with what they have. Would we rather they not accept Pell and middle class students because they don’t have the $$ to fully fund them? And I know in the case of NYU, there is the possibility that the low income/middle class student will get full need met through merit, which is not even a remote possibility at some of the more “generous” colleges who offer NO merit aid and have a stingy definition of “need” and don’t accept that many Pell students anyway (as revealed by the low percentages of Pells at those schools).
*I say “marginally” more generous because we are talking about the top 179 most generous colleges with a 75%-plus grad rate. Out of thousands of US colleges. So, yes, we are talking about relative margins here.
Interesting that UCI was tops. They were less generous for us than UCSD.
And I’ve known about Davidson since my oldest son applied to colleges. He never did apply there (not nearly enough math and physics), but it was originally on the list because of the generous f. aid.
The order of the list is interesting to me in that our financial aid packages (one student graduating in 2012, the other in 2015) would show something different. In 2012, we were not Pell Grant recipients, but would qualify for Blue Gold at UCs (under 80K income). In 2015, we were Pell Grant recipients.
The most generousneed-based schools on the two collective lists of my kids in order:
Vanderbilt
Caltech
Princeton
UPenn
MIT (They have recently changed their policy on outside scholarships in a positive direction)
Purdue (But this was a combo of scholarship and need-based aid; still, a pleasant surprise)
UCSD
UCI
I believe U-M still doesn’t meet OOS full need.
http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/SampleAidPackages.aspx
I have to agree it’s an “Odd” index. I think the logic behind using the % of Pell, is to use it as a measure of “access”. If the % is low, access is low. In U-M’s case, that’s driven by a high % of OOS students, and to a degree by high admission standards (also driven up by competitive OOS students).
@sbjdorlo, thank you for that post. It is a reminder that all of these statistics are just that - statistics. You never know what your own student will get. Cast a wide net is the best advice for those who need $$ for college.
@bclintonk, few of the schools you listed have the endowment to be generous to many poor students. Granted, WashU has no excuse.
@prospect1, every single one of the schools @bclintonk listed (except for maybe PSU?) offers some merit scholarships.
In any case, as I explained before, I agree with @prospect1 that averages are meaningless for any individual applicant. For a poor kid in MI, UMich may well be cheaper than NU. For a poor kid outside MI, until recently, UMich was far more expensive than NU (and even now, may still not be cheaper).
@PurpleTitan, yes, we should not cast aspersions on colleges doing their best with what they have; yet, many on CC love to do this. Blame the alumni who are not contributing as heartily to the FA coffers.
I would still love to know whether U Michigan is planning to meet full need for OOS for this year’s applicants…anybody? Is there something in the works for this class that is not apparent on the website? There are a fair number of applicants in my area, as probably in every OOS area, who would like to know.
This is true, but it’s changing pretty fast. This year for the first time on the University of Michigan pages on CC there were lots of posts from happy OOS admits reporting that they were surprised and pleased with the generosity of Michigan’s need-based FA for OOS students. Not everyone yet, but the university’s stated goal is to be able to meet full need for all students, including OOS, and they’re about 3/4 of the way toward their $4 billion capital campaign goal with 3 years still remaining in the campaign period. Successful completion of that campaign will give them ample resources to meet the OOS FA goal.
@bclintock, if U Michigan can meet that goal, watch the selectivity of that university zoom into the stratospheres. Likely surpassing Berkeley and UCLA and beyond. Kudos to UMich if they can pull this off.
@prospect1, note that UVa and UNC say they meet full need for everyone as well. The only publics that do.
You should try the net price calculator to see.
Last time I checked, OOS FA at UMich was good for the lowest income range (under the mid-$30,000s), but then there was a large jump in net price that made it unlikely to be affordable for those from the income range just slightly above.