SPS to Extend Financial Aid Policy

Prep School Admissions
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From the SPS website:

SPS to Expand Financial Aid Policy

7/15/2015
SPS will extend its financial aid policy to include more American families, beginning in the 2015–16 school year. In the first change to its financial aid guidelines since 2012, the School will award full tuition and mandatory fees to students demonstrating strong academic ability and leadership potential and whose families earn $125,000 or less annually. In addition, families earning between $125,000 and $250,000 will be expected to contribute no more than 10 percent of the family’s household income toward their child’s education. The move was made to address the impact of rising tuition costs and slowing income growth and their effects on the affordability of education.

“This increase reflects our continued commitment to providing a St. Paul’s School education to all qualified students, despite their ability to pay,” said Rector Mike Hirschfeld ’85. “By remaining as accessible as we possibly can, we are able to enrich the overall quality of our education by creating a dynamic community of individuals who bring their diverse experiences and perspectives to the School.” Currently 38 percent of all St. Paul’s School students receive some form of financial aid.

At the School, where all students live on the grounds, this financial support includes room, board, and other expenses. The cost of attending St. Paul’s School in 2015–16 is expected to be $54,290. The aid under the revised policy will come entirely in the form of grants; the School will require no loans to be repaid.

The policy is similar to those available from some of the nation’s most competitive colleges, including Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton, where income thresholds help families more easily calculate their financial responsibilities. “We want our financial aid philosophy to be clear for prospective families,” said Dean of Admission Scott Bohan ’94. “It recognizes that $54,000 per year is a lot of money, and it outlines what one’s actual contribution might be. This is a very logical next step that underscores our intention to increase the range of families who can take advantage of all St. Paul’s School has to offer.”

According to Financial Aid Director Tim Caryl-Klika, the new policy also means that there is no income cut-off for financial aid eligibility, so families with incomes higher than $250,000 per year may still qualify for aid. “We have been a leader in independent school financial aid for some time now,” he said. “We want students and their families to determine if St. Paul’s is the best school for them based on the quality of our programs and our commitment to living in community. Financial considerations are of course important, but finding the right fit should be paramount.”

Building on a policy announced in 2006 that awarded full tuition to families of admitted students with household incomes of $65,000 or less, the policy was expanded in 2008 to offer full financial aid to families with household incomes of $80,000 or less. In 2012, families earning between $80,000 and $200,000 per year were asked to contribute no more than 10 percent of their yearly income.

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One like isn’t enough. Well done SPS.

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^ Absolutely agree!!

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wow, that sounds great. Bet there will be a surge in applications this year!

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Perhaps this will help more people look beyond the PA and the PEA?

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Incredible. So lucky to live in a world where opportunities like this are possible.

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SPS is already drawing close to, equal to and sometimes even more applicants than PA and PEA per open spot, as demonstrated by its low admit rate. To really help more “people look beyond PA and PEA”, it should increase its enrollment while maintaining excellent FA program. The current approach will nevertheless draw more applicants and boost its selectivity. It’d be interesting to see how many more of its students will be on FA next year.

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SPS certainly is no “hidden gem” and is viewed in some circles as more desirable than PEA and PA. SPS can’t increase enrollment. Given chapel space, it’s student body is constrained by seats available. SO, those admit statistics in the years ahead should be interesting to see. It’ll be interesting as well to see if other schools follow suit.

Thrilled to see SPS take this step which will hopefully result in a greater percentage of students on FA, a statistic where the school has lagged behind PEA and PA.

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Thanks for posting @doschicos. Is SPS Need-blind as well?

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No; technically amongst boarding schools, only Andover is officially need-blind, although others may be in practice.

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Don’t quote me, but over the years, I’ve heard of two kinds of financial aid distribution methods if you will in private schools. One, as done by many day schools, is to put applicants who need financial aid and those who do not in different pools, and form their class based on a pre-defined ratio of FA vs non-FA. For example, they’d first take 85% of their students from the non-FA pool and then move on to complete the class by selecting the rest of the class from the FA pool. Obviously, they could adjust that ratio based on their financial aid budget for the year, the amount of aid needed by individuals, and applicants’ qualifications in both pools.

The other, as done by schools with large endowments and more students on FA, is to separate admissions and FA distribution into two steps. They dive into the applicant pool and select applicants based on whatever holistic criteria including but not limited to legacy, URM, geographic diversity, recruited athletes - EXCEPT the need for FA. They then look at the financial need of the tentatively admitted students pool relative to their FA budge for the year. If there’s not enough money to cover the needs of those who are applying for FA, which apparently happens quite often, then they will replace some of the FA needed admitted with “the next in line” from the not-admitted non-FA pool, “one at a time”. When a school reaches the point of replacing zero admitted student because of their financial need, then the school reaches the threshold of “need-blind”. However, even if a school has met that threshold for one year, unless they are committed to continue the practice year after year, they may not want to put “need-blind” out there as an official policy for obvious reasons.

So, instead of focusing on whether a school is really “need-blind” (partly because so few of them are at this point of time), one should look at the percentage of students on FA and the amount of aid they are getting, the combination of both usually give you a fairly good picture on how robust a school’s FA program is. And even with the need-blind schools, because there are so many institutional needs to fulfill and with so few open spots each year, chances are many/most spots will go to those who don’t need FA even before the FA consideration kicks in. (In that sense, I understand the argument that there is no “true” need-blind, which unfortunately would hold true across all need-blind institutions, and I don’t see a solution out there unless the holistic admission is fundamentally changed). Hope this helps.

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Great post with lots of insight, @Panpacific–thank you!

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I have been reading about financial aid and I have have some questions. We are applying for next year. I work and my spouse has had significant health issues and does not work. Our income is probably about 175,000. This is a huge expense for us. We do have substantial assets ( obviously not millions) but they general income that we primarily save and use for major expanses. With my spouse’s health situation we cannot use those assets for anything. It is our only retirement/savings. While my income is good I have no pension. Thoughts on whether or not we would likely get some aid?

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There is an area on the aid application where you can explain your situation. It is at the end. The application itself also requests for out of pocket medical expenses. I was surprised at how much the financial aid agency estimated we could pay. I explained why that wasn’t possible and what we could do.

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None of the schools our son applied to seemed to care about that. Though they did not expect us to draw from our current 401k balances, they DID expect funds available for future retirement contributions and ANY other form of income or savings as available for BS regardless of the fact that we are “older” parents. Thus, we found ourselves full pay and eyeing the cat’s food…

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@Center: There’s not a simple yes or no answer to your question. Wait till you have posted enough to be are able to PM. Then PM me if you’d like. I may be able to help you sort out a couple of things before you start the process.