<p>There's a discussion over on the Tulane Forum debating the appropriateness of academic scholarships by private universities. One proffered hypothesis is that academic scholarships are a crutch used by lower-ranking universities to "buy" students, and that top universities attract so many gifted students that elimination of academic scholarships would not affect the university, either in the short run or the long. I'm not so sure about that.</p>
<p>What effect, if any, would be the effect of zeroing out the FA budget at UChicago?</p>
<p>PS, I know very little of UChicago, other than by reputation (and the volume of mail my D received). I chose to post my inquiry here because UChicago does not use sports programs to promote the university.</p>
<p>I think the hypothesis of “buying” students is flawed. Yes, they call them “merit” awards but in truth they are much more about yield management and cash flow than merit at most schools. Atlantic Monthly discussed this at length a few years back. </p>
<p>My own knowledge is from the classmates of my D at UofC. None of the merit winners she knew graduated to any kind of stardom, which is what one would expect if the U were buying “the best”.</p>
<p>Academic (merit) scholarships and FA are two different things even though they tend to overlap in many cases. U of C provides 100 $10k and around 30 full tuition (approx. $38k) merit scholarships to accepted students regardless of need. Not all decide to attend, so some of those scholarships are not used. That money will be deducted from the amount of FA they qualify for, if any. This is just information to start the discussion.</p>
<p>I’m completely unfamiliar with UofC’s methods of disbursing and collecting student monies. And I may be structuring the question poorly. Would it be fair to say that with exception of the 100 $10K and 30 full-tuition merit awards, that FA for all remaining students is COA minus their PROFILE amount?</p>
<p>Chicago provides full need, though based on their own conception of what that is, for all FA recipients. If one’s family makes, I believe, $60,000 or less, then loans are not part of the package. Some find Chicago’s FA lacking, while others are delighted with it. I doubt eliminating the 100 part and 30 full scholarships in an admitted class of 3000 plus (not the attending classes), would make little difference in FA awards.</p>
<p>J’adoube is correct – the “full scholarships” are tuition only, not COA. If one assumed even the usual overall yield (last year 37%, IIRC), that is not a huge amount of dollars compared to the total FA budget. I would not be surprised if the actual yield is lower for scholarship recipients, since there are other schools which may cross-admit Chicago applicants and which offer better FA and up to a higher income level than Chicago does.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that some colleges may want to compete for top students with merit or academic scholarships. Harvard, Yale and Princeton (and maybe a couple of others, but not many) have the reputations and bucks to get top students and provide excellent need based aid. Other colleges can’t necessarily do it the same way. To try compete by the same set of rules will put those schools in losing positions, so to speak. Now, of course, there are others ways to compete for top students. Some schools use fancy facilities - gyms, student centers, dining halls, etc. Some try to enhance their attractiveness with great sports programs. Other use unique academic programs - the core for Chicago, the “no core” at Brown, the real hard, hard core at Cal Tech, etc. All these are great. To suggest there should be no merit deals is certainly anti-competitive. I could go on. Schools have, to some extent, gotten themselves in this position by jacking up tuition at about double the rate of inflation for the last 30 years. It has reached the point where parents, even parents of some means, have to wonder if a private school education is worth the $200 grand or so that it costs without aid. In may places in the country you can get a good (if not the same) education plus a decent house for the same cost. Or a good education plus a couple years of graduate school.</p>
<p>A close friend of S1’s received the full scholarship, but with everything else still let the parents & student with about $14,000 to come up with. Yale offered about the same. The student went back to both told them the decision was between the two, and Yale increased the package to cover everything, Chicago did not. So it was off to Yale even though Chicago was the first choice. They may not offer merit aid, but they use their “need based” aid to accomplish the same goal.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. They paint a different picture than I anticipated, but that’s not a bad thing … not at all. It does mean I’ll have to alter my financial strategy as we start putting together a college list for D#3. Again, thank you.</p>