<p>As a full-pay family with four kids (one out of college, one at MIT, one applying to Ivy-level schools now, and one still in middle school) we can say that not applying for FA is a two-edged sword. Yes, it may confer an advantage (both of our first two applicants were accepted to their first-choice schools). However, because of “reverse discrimination” it is a disadvantage, as schools try to find more URM’s to “diversify” their accepted populations. Schools are entitled to use whatever admissions criteria they want, of course.</p>
<p>I agree with the notion that not all affluent families can afford $200,000 plus per kid; we certainly cannot afford almost $1,000,000. It can be substantially less expensive for a URM to attend some schools, with policies like at Yale (a family with $200,000 or less in annual income pays a maximum of $20,000 toward the annual cost).</p>
<p>"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 need to guess. I’ve met hordes of such party-hearty full-pay students at various private universities such as Harvard, BU, BC, Tufts, Columbia, NYU, Brandeis, and even a few at Oberlin…my alma mater. Heck, a few of these jerks even left garbage, vomit, and products of vandalism all around my friend’s apartment when I visited him in the Fenway area…</p>
<p>Fortunately…in the case of the few at Oberlin, they ended up repeating their first year, placed on academic probation, suspended, floundered to graduation with C/C- averages or a transcript full of courses taken on a pass/fail basis, or eventually transferred out of their own accord when they were unhappy at having mediocre grades and looked upon disdainfully by the rest of the student body…especially scholarship students like yours truly.</p>
<p>Clearly for those who are “full pay”, it is a bitter pill to swallow.
Often aid is “demonstrated” need only for many and that “demonstrated” need is often calculated oddly by institutions…</p>
<p>Personally I know of a family who can come up with the $50k per yr out of cash flow…and they are absolutely the exception, not the rule…most families do not have that kind of cash to queeze it out of their present circumstances.</p>
<p>As said, saving (well planned by some) is the benefit of having the cash to pay for college with no loans for your student to carry into their future. That is a gift. </p>
<p>The sad thing is that with the economic downturn, if you are like us–your house is “upside down”, unsellable AND the mortgage nut is more than the current value…</p>
<p>Merit aid is clearly better than need only…why can’t BOTH of those things be used so that the kids who worked for the high test scores, high GPAs, held down or job or did community service etc etc get rewarded…
after all we pay people for work…
no work should = no pay</p>
<p>"Merit aid is clearly better than need only…why can’t BOTH of those things be used so that the kids who worked for the high test scores, high GPAs, held down or job or did community service etc etc get rewarded…
after all we pay people for work…
no work should = no pay "</p>
<p>FYI, need-based aid in the forms of scholarships like the near-full ride one I received at Oberlin is both needs and merit-based. </p>
<p>Though it is not talked about very much, in most cases…if a student’s undergrad GPA falls below a 3.0 or in some places, below even a 3.25, that scholarship will be taken away. A reason why IME, scholarship students and those on financial aid tend to work much harder, earn higher GPAs, and are more likely to be honors/deans list students than “full-pay” students. </p>
<p>Moreover, Federal-based grants can be taken away if minimum academic performance/progress is not being made(i.e. failing too many courses, underloading on courses each semester). That is…unless the Feds have changed their grant policies since the late 1990’s.</p>
<p>My children will both be “full pays”. However, my husband and I are IT contractors who don’t have medical or retirement benefits. We don’t get paid for vacation, holiday or sick days. We could lose our jobs any day. I would be ecstatic if my daughter qualified for a small amount of merit aid, considering how fragile our jobs are. We drive our cars until they fall apart and save $200/mo/child for college. I know we are better off than most, but private college tuition is a tremendous expense for nearly everyone.</p>
<p>We’re well off because I was lucky enough to receive a generous severance package after 16 yrs at my last company, and I received $100,000 from my mother’s estate when she died. We have cash, but our medical benefits are Cobra. This is a tough economy, and I consider myself fortunate to be employed.</p>
<p>Fogfog, Harvard and Yale announced policies a couple of years ago, capping a family’s outlay at 10% of a certain threshold ($180,000 at Harvard and $200,000 at Yale). I don’t know if this has changed since.</p>
<p>With endowments over $20 billion, wouldn’t it be great if these schools made tuition free for all? The interest from the endowments alone would cover all undergraduate tuition costs.</p>
<p>There seems to be some confusion on this thread over the purpose of financial aid. It’s purpose is not to pay students for getting good grades. That’s what merit scholarships are for. Need-based financial aid is a mechanism to make it possible for students who are too poor to pay to attend some great schools. That some students, whether getting aid or not, fail to work hard and take full advantage of their opportunities is unfortunate, but that’s not justification for abolishing need-based aid. </p>
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<p>I’m sure that rich kids at Harvard would think it’s great to be even richer. But it’s not going to happen any time soon. The financial crisis hit Harvard and other rich colleges hard. They may have $20 billion in theory, but much of it is tied up in forms that can’t be spent or easily converted to cash. Cash has been so short that there have been lay-offs and cut-backs at Harvard. The construction on their major expansion into Allston was stopped in its tracks. The students are no longer served hot breakfasts in the dining halls. All to save enough money to pay the daily bills. Tuition is not going away any time soon.</p>
<p>^^Yes, but ever since post #17 this thread took a turn in a different direction and became several posters complaining that they were getting better grades than kids on aid, and this somehow meant that the wrong kids were getting aid. Then a parent or two chimed in and agreed that aid based on need to be abolished and replaced with aid based on performance. It was to them I was responding.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert on the financial aid policies at Harvard of Yale, but I believe your comment is an over-simplification. Current income isn’t the only factor, which your statement presumes. A family making $150,000 a year living in a rental home will be treated much more generously than a family making $120,000 a year but living in a home with great equity and a substantial savings/retirement account. My girlfriend’s family received very little financial aid due in large part to land they own that is worth a great deal of money and other liquid assets, even though their incomes are not high. Most schools look at the entire asset base when making financial aid decisions, and not just current income levels.</p>
<p>After reading 2 pages of this thread, I am tired of hearing about “us full pay” parents and/or kids from the same old people. </p>
<p>Their ideas are simple: we should make those who lacked the money and merit pay for themselves. </p>
<p>Well, here’s my take on this. I believe the whole system is corrupted. Education should not be brought with money, in fact, money should not be allowed within education. Instead of stating your obvious advantages as being full pay, how about having your child go to a boarding school their whole life, without you even able to pay for anything theirs? That way we would be able to achieve the most accurate graph of their status. Those who excels will get into better institutes and your money would not be spent on them. Upon graduation from such institutes, your kid would be required to pay 20% of their checks back tot he institutes for 10 years. That way, it will keep the program alive. And that program is the true “merit” based.</p>
<p>As my post secondary education counselor said to us in a lecture during the summer: one of her student’s father have over a million in saving and the student was planning to use them for his education without a thought of anything else. His father told him, “son you are broke, I am rich, the money is for my retirement and not for you.”</p>