<p>The generous aid is only available at Harvard and Princeton, i.e., 180k and 10 percent of the income. However, this number is not after taxes but before, using the gross income. This level is lot more generous than most other schools expecting you to foot the complete bill the moment the income crosses 80-100k.</p>
<p>OTOH - born2dance - if you have more than one kid going to college at the same time, the odds improve quite a bit for FA. They deduct the EFC for the first kid, thus lowering the family income and effectively second kid gets lot more money. So if you are twins, there is a chance that you get some FA.</p>
<p>@texaspg Actually, as of this year (or was it last year?) almost all the Ivies (and I believe Stanford, as well) do the <$60,000 free tuition, <$180,000 10% of income tuition.</p>
<p>born2dance - They don’t have it documented anywhere. Only Princeton and Harvard provide specific documentation that makes it clear and specific.</p>
<p>Really? That’s weird. I went to a college consortium fair with Penn, Stanford, and a few other Ivies (last year, back when I thought each of those fairs actually had something original to say that not every other college had already said ;P) and they all mentioned that they have that policy as of recently. They even gave us folders with info about each college, and all of them had that in their info. I’ll see if I can dig up the folder later and snap some pics of it.</p>
<p>Perhaps colleges are using SCEA as a tuition management tool. I do not believe that “need blind” policies mean that colleges don’t care whether they get any full-pay students or not. They definitely want some. SCEA might be one way snag a bunch of full-payers.</p>
<p>^^highly unlikely bay. The simple fact is that competition got H, P (and UVa) back into the early game. With Y and S giving out early admissions, those two had 3+ months to court those students, so by the time H or P came calling, the early invites already were already smitten and owned a Y or S sweatshirt. But more than just any regular old outstanding kid, Y & S were likely also snagging scions of world leaders and other hooked candidates (aka development cases – full buildings, not just tuition), leaving H&P in behind where they once were. </p>
<p>UVa just woke up the folly of their (weak) arguments.</p>
<p>From a financial need standpoint, Stanford may not cap tuition like HY, but S does have a generous formula for excluding home equity in the need calc.</p>
<p>This is official Stanford policy and nowhere does it say your bill is 10% of income.</p>
<p>Tuition Charges Covered for Parents with Income Below $100,000
For parents with total annual income below $100,000 and typical assets for this income range, the expected parent contribution will be low enough to ensure that all tuition charges are covered with need-based scholarship, federal and state grants, and/or outside scholarship funds. </p>
<p>Families with incomes at higher levels (typically up to $200,000) may also qualify for assistance, especially if more than one family member is enrolled in college. We encourage any family concerned about the ability to pay for a Stanford education to complete the application process. If we are not able to offer need-based scholarship funds we will recommend available loan programs.</p>
<p>It does not say they are on par with other Ivies. It says if you are fortunate enough to get into another Ivy and get a specific level of FA, they will match it. </p>
<p>You should check each school policy before assuming they are all equal these days.</p>
<p>Some of theses schools have <60k policies, but only HYPS give FA to families ranging up towards 180k. One can quibble about the differences between HYPS FA formulas, but they are far above all other schools for ca. 100k+ income families.</p>
<p>@texaspg @entomom I am not assuming based on hearsay. I legitimately have official information sheets each college at the fair handed out (including Stanford) that stated quite clearly that they all followed that formula. Now maybe all the adcoms of the different schools made a mistake in printing that, but as I said, this is first hand information collected from a data sheet the college gave out. Literally each school gave out a fact sheet of their own. All 5 schools there (there were actually 6, but Georgetown made it clear they did not follow the same system) said that they worked on <$60,000 free tuition, <$180,000 10% of income tuition systems. Like I said, maybe they all made a misprint, or maybe they decided to stop the program before it even started this year, but on that particular day, that was their stance.</p>
<p>the point, texas, is that Stanford is extremely generous with finaid, so someone applying SCEA there is not losing much in the way of aid if they would have won the merit aid lottery at BC. Indeed, Stanford’s generous need-based formula is probably a better deal for nearly all “middle” class families, the point of this thread. Stanford may not go up to $180k, but is also generous for multiple sibs in college.</p>
<p>OTOH, it is highly unlikely that S would lose a cross-admit to HYP over a financial aid formula.</p>
<p>fwiw: I found an article in Higher Ed News that Yale had bumped its need formula up to $200k income. At that rate, the “one percenters” are getting close to becoming ‘needy’.</p>
<p>born, As I stated above, I agree that S has a generous FA policy that is on par w/HYP. </p>
<p>The reason I doubt that the others do is because: I know that they didn’t 4 years ago and I haven’t heard of any other schools changing to similar policies as HYPS for upper income families (it’s something I watch carefully). And given the effect of the financial crisis on endowments, rather than becoming MORE generous, many schools have become less so. For instance, several schools (like Dartmouth & Williams) have had to drop or modify their no loan policies.</p>
<p>I went to a recent Brown admissions talk and the adcom was very honest in stating that they will meet all the need of admitted students but run some type of formula to make sure the mix of students they plan to accept won’t exceed the FA budget. If that were the case, they would change decisions before they went out. The financial need of the ED applicants may very well be less than the garden variety RD applicants and this may account for some of the admissiosn preference as it gives the school more lattitude to choose in the RD round without concern for need.</p>
<p>bluebayou - Stanford has generous aid, on par with any other school in the nation when income involved is 100k. In fact most schools seem to have this nice number (60-80k) where they claim to pick up the entire tab for a kid and that is reflective of schools participating in questbridge. I am only questioning whether there are written policies that are clear about what one can expect in terms of clear grant vs loan package under the following conditions:</p>
<p>Only kid in college </p>
<p>What can they expect if the family income is </p>
<p>60k, 120k, 180k, 200k.</p>
<p>I read literature claiming there is expected FA for kids upto 200k family income, especially if there is another kid in college. However, it does not say what can be expected clearly. If you read literature from Harvard or Princeton, you see it very clearly written although I am now seeing Harvard seems to have changed some policies starting for 2012 students.</p>
<p>FYI: 10% of 180,000 income is only used for tuition. Tack onto that another 12-15K for room & board & mandatory fees + indirect costs of books, personal expenses and travel. Brings the cost much higher - figure about 30-35K annually.</p>
<p>@entomom Maybe they misinformed us or decided to start the policy this year but ultimately decided to not follow through with it. That is possible. All I know is that when I went last Spring the schools specifically stated that that was the exact system the 5 of them used.</p>
<p>How dare the poor 200k family have to pay the tuition… do you people even realize how ridiculous you sound? You have been given every advantage in life by being born to that kind of family, and yet how dare you have to pay full tuition or an amount close to it.</p>
<p>Just, wow . . . born2dance94
Your parents are just barely scrimping by at 200K? Maybe you’d better go occupy Wall Street or Walnut Creek or Atherton or wherever it is that you don’t think you have the resources to live comfortably. Your parents may be having trouble paying for both your dance lessons and your car payment, but some out there are more focused on paying the power bill and their application fees. Just try be grateful for what your parents have given you so far and maybe a bit more appreciative of the advantages that they’ve been able to provide for you. There are worse problems to have than making too much money for need based FA.</p>