<p>Stanford joins Harvard and Princeton in paying for tuition for those students from families with an income lower than $45,000. Those students who come from familes earning up to $60,000 will pay $3,800.</p>
<p>So this does puts thing in perspective. How affordable is Berkeley then if students from low income familes who get in to both Stanford and Berkeley will not have to pay tuititon compared to Berkeley's $7,000?</p>
<p>Why come here and point that out? Of course anyone would go to stanford for free over berkeley or any other school that costs money. Why not just say, wow, what a great thing that they're able to help out poor families without making it some competion?</p>
<p>Amen to that, gentlemanandscholar.</p>
<p>I thought it was lower than $40,000 for Harvard (a year ago).</p>
<p>eiffel, how intently have you looked at the financial aid information for Berkeley? I claim no expertise, but the admin. does tend to claim that UC Berkeley does do a good job at representing the financial "diversity" that is California. Some lament the fact that Berkeley does not represent California's racial diversity, but that's a whole 'nother issue anyway. </p>
<p>it really comes down to what one believes the UC Berkeley and the rest of the University of California system's responsibilities are.</p>
<p>Have to say this sucks for many people. My parents were first generation immigrants and my dad had only recently graduated college and was quickly promoted because he worked hard (24k to 80k in 3 years with a CS degree). Of course financial aid does not take into account past circumstances so we didn't get much aid. Its like a tax on those among the middle class that work hard to get where they are.</p>
<p>I don't think its a tax on anyone. You're not paying more so poor people can go for free. It sucks that it costs that much for you, but its good that poor people can go to one of the best schools in the world for free. It doesn't hurt anyone.</p>
<p>As a Cal student, I'd have to say Stanford rocks. This is further proof.</p>
<p>I wish I had the talent, stamina, and luck to make it there for undergrad X-nay the cost.</p>
<p>As a Cal student, I'd have to say that Stanford still sucks. But I'm glad that they're making an effort to help poor people get a great education.</p>
<p>I agree with Polite Antagonis's general premise that in an ideal world, financial aid should consider past circumstances, and not just your current income or current assets. Otherwise, it just encourages gaming. It reminds me of rich old people transferring all their assets either to offshore bank havens or to their dependents, and then claiming poverty so as to get free nursing home care from Medicare/Medicaid. Or cases like Arianna Huffington, who is rich, nevertheless paying no taxes because she is able to claim numerous business tax deductions and credits that most people have never heard of. There are also some people who have plenty of money but who have nonetheless manipulated their assets and their income to appear poor to qualify for full financial aid. </p>
<p>Now it should be pointed out that Stanford did not create this problem. This is really a general nation-wide problem.</p>
<p>Often, the claim is made that Berkeley offers an affordable education to those high caliber students who not be able to pay the tuition of private schools without taking massive loan amounts. Stanford joins Harvard and Princeton in recognizing that these students need a more attractive option in terms of financial aid.</p>
<p>Not to say that Berkeley's financial aid packages are poor. However, the federal government continues to cut money for student financial aid; the Stafford loan will be changing within the next two years going from an adjustable to a fixed rate loan among other things. Expenses continue to rise. </p>
<p>(Gemnihop: I have looked "intently" at Berkeley financial aid. I do not have any criticisms against the Financial Aid Office because they're making the best situation with the resources they have. The whole point of posting that Stanford is paying tuition is to demonstrate that Berkeley cannot simply claim affordability to those high caliber students being admitted to top universities like Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton. )</p>
<p>Yale has a similar deal.</p>
<p>I agree with eiffelguy87, that this calls into question the notion that Berkeley is really the best deal for the poor. I think the real truth is that Berkeley is a good deal for the middle class, but not that good of a deal for the poor. The poor would be better off going to HYPS, where they will probably pay less than if they went to Berkeley. I remember a guy I know who said that he got into Harvard and Berkeley and chose Harvard because the aid packages actually made it cheaper to go to Harvard. He then mordantly joked that he had always wanted to go to Berkeley but he couldn't afford it, so now he has 'no choice' but to go to Harvard. </p>
<p>I think a more accurate description is that Berkeley is a good deal for those poor students who are just not good enough to get into HYPS. It is true that Berkeley serves more poor students than do HYPS. But with these new policies, HYPS serves the highest achieving of those poor students better than Berkeley does.</p>
<p>I also agree that Berkeley is caught in a political pickle here and that Berkeley is doing the best it can given its circumstances. For example, one way to free up resources is to simply admit fewer students, and in particular, not admit those students who are unlikely to graduate anyway. After all, why admit a student who isn't going to graduate? Another way would be to simply reduce the enrollments of those creampuff majors that are filled with those students who are just trying to get an easy degree without putting in much work. But I digress. At the present time, I don't see an easy way for Berkeley to match the aid initiatives of HYPS.</p>
<p>If "the poor" are able and lucky enough to get into HYPS then I'd say they'd be stupid to turn down a free education at one of the places to come to berkeley. I haven't heard any argument to the contrary, so why are we even trying to make some comparison? We can all safely say that a free education at HYPS is better than a cheap one at Berkeley.</p>
<p>I think it is useful to muse about what Berkeley could do in the long run to make its undergrad program more competitive with the best private schools. After all, the Berkeley doctoral programs have no problem competing with the best private schools, and in particular, no 'cost' issues (as all doctoral students get basically the same package no matter where they go).</p>
<p>^^^Charge much much more, admit fewer students, actively work to get more money from alums.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's probably the end-point, the question is, how do you get there, politically.</p>
<p>I think major gains could be made by simply not admitting those people who don't graduate anyway. Something like 15% of all Berkeley students never graduate. So just simply don't admit them. Obviously you can't expect to catch every single one of these people, but I think you could do something to bring down the non-graduation rate to less than 5%. </p>
<p>Another tack may be for Berkeley to input a large surcharge (i.e. say $5,000), but give it back if you graduate. Call it the 'non-graduation security deposit fee' or something, similar to the security deposit you have to pay in order to rent an apartment (but that gets returned to you if the apartment is in good order when you move out). Either 1 of 2 things will happen. Either Berkeley will generate more revenue from those students who didn't graduate. Or more of those students will be spurred to graduate. Another way would be to simply charge for 4 years of tuition upfront, but with a policy that those who graduate early will get a pro-rated amount back, and those who take more years to graduate will have to pay for each additional year, but those who don't graduate at all don't get any money back. So Berkeley would either have more money, or the graduation rate would increase. Either way, Berkeley would be better off.</p>
<p>Actually, I like the first idea of a deposit.</p>
<p>Someone posted up above that it wasn't a tax on the middle class for the lower class to receive aid. I could be wrong about this, but here goes: I heard that Rice pours a lot of their money into lowering tuition. Instead of around 45,000 dollars, standard private school tuition, it is 35,000, I think. At most other universities, this money goes to giving low income students full scholarships. So yes, it does affect the middle class. Whoever said that obviously didn't think it through. Harvard would not have to charge so much for tuition if it didn't offer financial aid. If everyone pulled their weight evenly, instead of one person paying nothing and another paying 45,000, it might be evened out to 25,000 each.
And I also agree that the middle class gets screwed. Lower class doesn't have to pay anything, its a drop in the bucket for the upper class, and the middle class is left struggling to take out loans, mortgage houses etc. I come from a middle class neighborhood, and I cannot tell you the number of people I know who have turned down MIT and the likes for Berkeley because it was less financial pressure. Consider my situation: A middle class family, parents haven't saved up anything for retirement because they have spent all the money on the kids for 18 years, and FAFSA says we don't deserve any financial aid. My family told me that they estimated they could give me 20,000 dollars a year for tuition, and I'd have to take out loans for the rest. This would put me at about 100,000 dollars in debt if I was to go to a private school.
In the end the rich and the poor don't feel a burden at all, while it is all displaced on the middle class. I'm not sure the problem is solvable, and as a Democrat, I fully agree with providing a full education to the poor, however, maybe the definition of poor should be expanded when it comes to college education.</p>
<p>I understand your point entirely, eiffel, sorry if I sounded huffy. I've been meeting the Regents' Scholars admits the past two weeks and many of them are already considering their options since some of the are EA/ED admits for Ivys and LACs. These admits and others are the high caliber that I believe you are referring to.</p>
<p>The deposit idea sounds reasonable, the tuition-up-front unfeasible for many.</p>