Colleges don’t have to be need blind for admssions - they choose to be. The admissions people are’t trying to figure out who the poor students are and targeting them, unless it is through a program like Questbridge. An address in the Hamptons doesn’t mean you are rich as some of those residents are the service people for the rich, the shop owners. My kids went to schools with the children of millionnaires and kids on public assistance - couldn’t always tell by the address of zip code.
I don’t think it’s a case of recruiting low income students as it is the case of a shrinking middle class. As tuition costs outpace wage growth the math eventually doesn’t work.
As I’m going the process with S20 and S21 I feel slimy after some school visits. I feel like I’m dealing with car salesman. Sticker price is a fallacy.
But don’t think for a minute these colleges don’t know exactly who they need to recruit and who they want to attend. It’s big business and they have the data.
^Agree that college costs have outpaced wage growth for white-collar wage earners.
Not in all states. SUNY tuition is less than $8k/year, and students whose families earn less than $125k/year are eligible for a full tuition grant. Aren’t CA and FL publics also reasonable for state residents? How many states really have outlandish tuition rates for their residents?
I have seen the figures for many private high schools as well as colleges, and, yes, even full freight often does not cover the cost of having such a student at the school. Having a full pay student means less of a dip into endowment and other funds, and a greater pro oof getting some more money from the student and family through donations.
With private college cost getting up to the amounts where they are now, it’s going to be increasingly a wealthy families’ market, IMO.
Probably about 50-85% of students/families are FA-dependent to cover the costs of their in-state public universities, so in-state FA is probably the bigger factor than in-state list price for most (although forum posters are more likely to be in the upper 15% looking at list prices).
https://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data# suggests that some states do much better with in-state FA, based on the resulting student loan debt. CT, PA, DE, RI have significantly higher levels of student loan debt than UT, NM, NV, WY, CA, WA, AZ, FL.
Most states have several levels of state school tuition, from community colleges to state universities to the flagship. In Colorado it can cost $14k+ for tuition in Boulder, but other state schools are much less, plus the state pays the same $85/cr for residents which goes a lot further at Metro State (tuition for a semester @ $ 3500) than in Boulder. Housing is almost always cheaper at a ‘not Boulder’ school.
But people want Boulder. They want UF rather than U of West Florida or FIU. They want Berkeley over Merced.
Geez, it sounds like some of you think that colleges are in the business of raising tuition for the sake of raising tuition and trying to keep out the middle class. I work in higher ed, and I am keenly aware of the costs involved in running the very small school where I work. Tuition does not come close to covering costs. Endowed funds and other fundraising are essential to providing the funds necessary to pay salaries and benefits, maintain buildings, maintain the spaces around the buildings, pay bills such as gas, electric, insurance … etc., etc., etc. We have a staff so lean we work far more than a normal work week … and we earn less than what businesses pay employees who have less responsibility overall and work fewer hours. Yet we are committed to trying to build a diverse class of students - regardless of what they can or will pay. It’s really, really difficult.
I understand that tuition does not pay the entire cost of a student’s education at a school. It pays for a portion of it. The more money the college gets from outside sources, whether it is state/federal sources, loan proceeds, outside scholarships, some inside merit awards, and the student/family bank accounts, the less that gap is. Most colleges are limited as to how much aid they can give from their own accounts to offset the COA.
All of that information does not help a student who needs to come up with $X to pay at least the direct billed amounts after all the grants, savings, checks, loan money is received. That COA is increasing as is the gap, for some students. A lot of grants have barely increased over the years while costs have. Yeah, they raised PELL amounts. But costs have gone up more in a lot of places.
The kids who are hit hardest are those whose parents cannot or will not help. I know PELL eligible kids whose parents have done all they could to give their kids the most and best options. If it means commuting to the local CC, those parents help with the logistics and whatever money they can spare. They provide the financial info to make applying for financial aid possible. Then you have those who’ll hock the kid’s flute and steal from the kidbeg for kid’s money, and refuse to give any financial or tax info.
I’ve also seen well to do parents who refuse to provide financial info or the money for college. Those kids can’t even get the Direct Loan. Those kids can’t get much financial aid even with the info because it’s a matter of the parents spending all their money on other things than college costs. Even if Harvard material, it’s not gonna happen because these kids can’t get financial aid nor can they get parents to pay.
At many public schools housing costs more than tuition.
As always on CC, you all have given me a lot to think about and made many good points.
First off, I realize that the attitude of my posts was perhaps a little harsh towards colleges, and I’m not trying to paint them as evildoers – most schools are doing their best to address many competing needs in terms of admissions, and obviously there’s no solution that’s perfect for everybody.
However, I think it’s naive to take colleges at face value when they portray their admissions practices as meritocratic, holistic utopias. I don’t necessarily believe that colleges, even need-blind ones, aren’t trying to limit how much financial aid they give out, and full-pay students are as much a part of that equation as anyone. Even with the recent scandals, colleges still take a special look at uber-wealthy students. That’s not by accident. On the other hand, I haven’t found good data on whether the percentage of wealthy students at elite schools has gone up or down – so like I said, I’m just speculating.
And yes, there are exceptions, but I think colleges know the rough income bracket of 99% of applicants (the poor kid from the Hamptons probably wrote his essay about it). After all, they can’t pledge to admit more lower-income students if they have no clue which students are low-income.
I didn’t realize fundraising was such a big part of college financial aid budgets, so that does explain some things. Furthermore, colleges might be accepting plenty of students in all income ranges, but that doesn’t mean they’ll go. Some might feel they can’t afford it, and I’d argue more middle-class students fall into that category (even including upper-middle class students at the lower end of full pay), so it may be a chicken-and-egg issue.
More and more colleges are trying to address the middle class “doughnut issue.” Colby recently introduced its Fair Shot program, and to your point, it was funded by alums. @SuperSenior19, in Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History season one podcasts, there are 3 in the middle on education. All of them speak to this in some way and all are fascinating. While “Food Fight” speaks most directly to this, the one before (Carlos doesn’t remember) and the one after are also thought-provoking. None of these situations are as simple as they appear!
@twoinanddone Colleges know a lot more about applicants than just what is provided on their applications. Purchased prospect lists bucket kids based on various factors, including income. Not perfect, but far better than zip code.
Any college search needs to be balanced and respect your own financial reality.
Sounds like holistic and need blind are a mystery to you, OP. You need to not just take your own doubts at face value. Look into how it all does work.
Adcoms don’t have time to guess your income and certainly not based on zip code.
Of course they set limits to overall FA they can make available. Cant give beyond their means. But on the front end, families are supposed to be taking a realistic and informedlook at their own means and true qualifications for an admit. Not just crossing their fingers and pointing fingers of doubt, based on opinion.
@chmcnm I know exactly what you are talking about. (Needing a shower after an admissions pitch). You are right; they have the data. They know exactly how much discount they need to provide to each applicant ‘cell’ in order to maximize their stats (they live and die based on their rankings) and minimize how much to discount.
The total discount rate increased by 2% again this year (to 52%). As list prices go up, so do total discount rates. Tuition increases are related to many things, least being actual increases in costs to run the college. Parents and prospects believe that a more expensive college is a better one (which is completely false). Why is tuition at all of the Ivies almost exactly the same? Colleges strategically determine their list price and tactically use discounts to improve their class stats (if they do it right). Meanwhile, the more affluent don’t bat an eye at the increases, but those a couple rungs on the ladder down twist themselves in a pretzel to get into that club. A club that the college’s marketing machine (and board) do a fantastic job of convincing us is so, so worth it.
Many private colleges have zero students paying full price. Some colleges have freshmen class which is unprofitable because of a too aggressive discounting year - another reason that tuition needs to increase, to get 2-3% more money from that class each year.
Colleges have NO IDEA how much it costs to educate a single kid. They have their gigantic operating expenses and use every means they have to meet those expenses every year. Those expenses are not just because of professor’s salaries. To compete in the race (before the housing crisis), many expensive )debt service) buildings need to be paid for, still.
That’s exactly what’s happening. Due to high cost and no/low aid and no merit scholarships at these colleges, middle class students can’t attend schools they qualify for or dream of while poor and wealthy can attend these schools.
This discussion reminds me of the Swiss-Cheese Syllogism:
- More Holes = Less Cheese
- More Cheese = More Holes; therefore
- More Cheese = Less Cheese
Personally I think it is wrong to think of this stuff as a zero-sum game, as temping as it is.
Colleges have NO IDEA how much it costs to educate a single kid. They have their gigantic operating expenses and use every means they have to meet those expenses every year.
This makes no sense.
Schools know what everything costs and are challenged to find the balancing point where they attract as many of the best students they can get as they can afford to educate. They need the volume to fall in certain range to make the formulas work, so things like enough incoming tuition money to pay staff and bills, not needing to hire additional staff, not needing to build classrooms or dorms, etc. They have a fairly fixed aid budget with which to purchase the best quality kids possible, whether it be lower income kids with need or higher income kids with merit. A school’s mission will affect that calculus.
They know how many seats they need to fill and they know what aid it’ll take to fill them, more or less. The difficulty is when the aid money doesn’t go as far as it used to and the kids have to self-select themselves out of the running. That may be unfair to the kids or society or adjunct profs or whomever, but it’s not some huge mystery.
If colleges are really having trouble making their budgets work despite $70k tuition bills, they need to reassess their business models. Perhaps it isnt a good idea to offer every department, or every amenity, all the time to everyone. Time to reassess their mission in the face of supply and demand.
A middle class family envious of what it sees are the college financial aid opportunities that the poor get can easily become poor by switching to low paid jobs and giving away all or nearly all of its assets.