<p>@ Pea, It bothers me because all my school cares about is minorities. I’m not just making this up. They gave all the money away to the minorities so I have to pay full price even though I have some of the highest grades at the school. It is so rediculous how there is no GPA or Score limit students with full rides have to take. They were lucky enough to be brought up out of the increadibly poor areas they live in and be given a chance to suceed. Yet all these kids do is distract others and take away from the school. I would say that if my school didn’t have any money given away my school would be 10x. Also, for the kids who recieve a full ride, it is unbelievable. The kids come to school wearing Armani jackets, driving nice cars, have the newest cell phones, and buy lunch everyday. If the kids couldn’t afford to come to the school, how could they afford all these things? Ohh wait my school paid for all these things…</p>
<p>I know in my daughters college, a lot of kids recieveing FA buy latest laptops not only for themselves but give it to their relatives. They have such bad attitudes like they are poor so they are entitiled. While my kid works so hard because we her parents are paying over $50,000. I feel in this country the low income people are given wayyy too much importance its almost enabling them not to work and they taking advantage of the situation. Atleast full pay kids deserve to get first priority at registering for classes but …noooooooo!</p>
<p>As long as the applications continue to ask for parents’ professions along with level of education of parents, admissions officers can see this info and put 2 + 2 together. It should not matter on a college app what the parents professions are or their level of education. The app is for the student who is attending college, not the parents. Therefore, I have never really understood this business of need blind, unless the colleges are only providing the admissions office with info about the student only–no info about parents, etc. They can figure it out!</p>
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<p>It’s a PRIVATE school and you knew the rules/regs going in. If you don’t like dems roooles, quit the school. Doh!</p>
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<p>Excellent idea! Let’s not give any scholarship money to those lower GPA slackers in engineering and science fields. Or those gadabouts in the humanities who’re working part time while carrying a full load of courses–if they can’t manage straight A’s like all those old money full pay legacies, that must mean that they’re a poor investment for the university. </p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Let’s not lump all full pay families into the same category. There are many full pay families (like mine) who are not rich and who make tremendous sacrifices so that their kids can get the best education possible. Sometimes a family won’t qualify for financial aid because they’ve been financially prudent for years. My family bought s home 20 years ago and paid it off just recently. The home isn’t that nice but it’s paid for. Because it’s in California it’s worth a lot of paper but it’s not like it’s for sale or anything, so the value doesn’t help pay bills. We never took lavish vacations – ever – and we didn’t drive fancy cars, but what we have is paid off. Money was invested slowly for retirement. When you add everything up, having home equity and retirement money can push a family out of the financial aid window, even if their salaries are average. Now comes the college bll at an annual rate of $60,000. The bill can be paid, but only if the belt is tightened severely and tremendous sacrifices are made. I’m not looking for any sympathy but I do think the above generalizations are unfair. Not every full-pay family is driving Mercedes and living the high life. In our case the parents back home are going to live like paupers to pay the bills for the next four to eight years.</p>
<p>takedown: couldn’t agree more. I grew up in a very poor family, busted my butt, graduated from law school going at night for 4 years. Now I can “afford” to send my D to a good school, full-pay. Lots of sacrifice involved, like working way past 65 to pay for it. Many of my childhood friends liked to hang out and screw around and not bother trying to improve their lot in life. Now I and many of you are paying for their choices in many ways, including what is being discussed here. Do I think my D should have received a bump of some sort because we are full pay. Yes I do.</p>
<p>I believe schools should kick every kid that can’t spell and use the money to reward those who can.</p>
<p>This is not a simple issue. When I was in college, I worked multiple jobs and took out loans, plus I received financial aid from my school, without which I would not have been able to attend. I remember being extremely envious of the kids whose parents just paid the bills, and who didn’t have to worry every semester if they were going to be able to stay in school.</p>
<p>And now here I am on the other side. I’m one of those parents paying the bills, and we don’t qualify for any aid so we are “full pay”. I am very grateful to be able to do this for my kids, and I’m grateful in general to have the resources that we do. But, the <em>reason</em> we have these resources is that we have been very careful and very frugal and have lived below our means for many years. We started saving for the kids’ education before they were born, and paid off all of our debt. We are hardly some kind of high-living family with servants and fancy cars. </p>
<p>So, bottom line, do I think my kids should get some kind of admissions advantage because we are full-pay? No, I don’t, because I couldn’t stand to think that my kid had been accepted to a school ahead of a kid like I used to be…a kid without financial resources but who was willing to work hard. Plus I know that other families also work hard and save and are frugal, but still can’t possibly afford to pay full price.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I can relate to the frustration of the full-pay parents. For almost anybody, 50K plus per year is a heck of a lot of money, and I have to admit to a twinge of resentment when I think that my hard-earned, hard-saved 50K might perhaps be subsidizing the tuition bill for parents who didn’t manage their money well. </p>
<p>I think all we can do is accept the fact that life just is not fair. Sometimes parents who do everything “right” with their money get penalized because their kids don’t quality for some scholarships and aid. Sometimes hard-working, high-achieving, wonderful students are not able to attend the school of their choice because of financial issues. Sometimes families have tried as best they can, but unemployment or illness or other unavoidable situations have forced them into a bad financial place and then their kids’ choices become quite limited.</p>
<p>I think we all just have to be grateful that there are many different schools in this country, including state schools and community colleges, and many different need-based and merit-based scholarships, and also student loans so that almost anybody can get a college degree <em>somewhere</em> and <em>somehow</em> even if it’s not at their first choice school or in the way they would have preferred.</p>
<p>Must stop with this “Financial Aid” depending on how poor they are. Aid should be given on basis of Merit and deserving not on how poor they are even if they don’t deserve academically.There are exceptions and there are vitims of economy but most are lazy and rather watch tv and collect welfare in this generous Obama care than work hard and get their kids to college and try to pay themselves like most of us “full pay” who scarifice. Or give “full pay” kids some preference since we pay for those who don’t.</p>
<p>@kierans – I could not agree more. I like the idea of need-based assistance but I can understand the frustration of full-pay parents, a 50K price tag is not only exorbitant but out of reach for many families who don’t qualify for assistance.</p>
<p>@UVAorBust – Just keep being the student that you are and it will pay off for you in the long run. Your commitment to your education will open many doors for you down the road. You’ve got a bright future.</p>
<p>The kids you describe are being given a wonderful opportunity which they are foolishly squandering. They have been given a ticket to a better life than what their parents had and they are just throwing it away. Don’t let them bother you, there is nothing you can do about it. In the end they are just hurting themselves.</p>
<p>Yeesh…talk about the overentitlement of those who believe in quasi-legacy privilege and the assumptions about how those who receive full financial aid/scholarships are poor students. </p>
<p>IME and those of several professors/TAs at Ivy/Ivy-level private universities, the worst students in college tended to overwhelmingly be legacy admits, those on athletic scholarships, and children from the upper/upper middle classes who felt entitled to an A because ““They”(really their parents) were paying for it”. </p>
<p>I’ve lost count of the rants my college classmates who TA at the Ivies and Ivy-level universities had about spoiled “full-pay” students and parents who had the nerve to throw temper tantrums and sometimes even threaten lawsuits with actual lawyers because they received grades lower than a B+…or even an -A. </p>
<p>It sickens me as this type of behavior would have been considered outrageous in many other cultures where students…or worse, parents harassing a TA/Prof over a grade when it was clearly deserved or even quite generous would be considered unconscionable…with the students and their parents being subjected to opprobrium…especially if they threw their weight around because they have the means to pay full freight. </p>
<p>Heck, even I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being mistaken for one prep-school grad’s US history TA at an Ivy campus, screamed at and that idiot shoved his paper right in front of my face because he received a C. </p>
<p>After glancing at the paper…felt so good to tell him off by stating that his TA was being quite generous as the paper was complete garbage and would have merited an F and a stern lecture from my high school history teachers.</p>
<p>One more point. My father has a twin brother who makes more money than my dad but he spends even more than he makes. He’s taken his kids (my cousins) to Europe, Hawaii, Asia, Australia, etc. many times. Every two or three years he leases a new BMW 7 series. When the housing prices in California went sky high a few years ago he bought a very nice boat by taking out loans on his home. Two years ago he stopped paying on his house and even though the bank has threatened to foreclose they haven’t yet. He filed bankruptcy and lost some of his toys and now leases a regular car. His son (my oldest cousin) attends an Ivy and receives full financial aid since his parents are so “poor.” His common app essay was about the pain of seeing his parents in bankruptcy. As I said earlier our family didn’t qualify for any aid because my parents always spent very little money and instead saved for our education and for their retirement. </p>
<p>So what’s the lesson we are supposed to learn? Waste your money = large financial aid. Be wise with your money = full pay. It doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>@takedown – yes, your uncle caught a break in the college admissions, but the bigger picture is that he doesn’t have anything to show for his years of living well and he won’t be prepared for retirement. It’s always better to live within your means, your parent’s retirement years will be their reward for their responsible choices.</p>
<p>I know you’re right, pea. I guess I’m frustrated because I am feeling guilty. I could have attended a less expensive college and save them a lot of money.</p>
<p>@takedown – your parents wouldn’t have done this for you unless they wanted to. There is no better thing to spend money on than a kid’s education.</p>
<p>^thanks, pea.</p>
<p>According to my parents, the most important thing is buying a 30 fishing boat and a retirment home in Miami on the water…</p>
<p>“I believe schools should kick every kid that can’t spell and use the money to reward those who can.”</p>
<p>What a hoot!</p>
<p>junior_mom, it looks like you have one child at American University, and another applying to Brandeis. Both schools award merit aid; AU can be especially generous to students with high stats. It looks like neither school guarantees to meet full need. Both schools include loans in their FA packages. </p>
<p>If your kids are/will be full pay at either school, that means they aren’t receiving merit aid. It also means that they’re not going to be burdened by loans, like some of their fellow classmates. You seem to feel that there are hordes of the spawn of tv addicted welfare queens who are sucking up all the FA money while not bothering to do any work whatsoever. I’m guessing that there are a heck of a lot more students of the “mom and dad have tons of money and paid for everything so I can go parTAY, whooooo!” variety. Well, maybe not at Brandeis. :)</p>
<p>No, I’m not implying that all or even a significant fraction of full-pay students are playing beer pong Thursday night through Sunday, and are carrying a 2.7 GPA. But some are. As a soon-to-be-possibly-full-pay parent, those are the students who really make the steam come out of my ears.</p>