<p>Appreciate the link.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Like Florida, more leading public universities are striving for national status and drawing increasingly impressive and increasingly affluent students, sometimes using financial aid to lure them. In the process, critics say, many are losing force as engines of social mobility, shortchanging low-income and minority students, who are seriously underrepresented on their campuses. </p>
<p>“Public universities were created to make excellence available to all qualified students,” said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, an advocacy group, “but that commitment appears to have diminished over time, as they choose to use their resources to try to push up their rankings. It’s all about reputation, selectivity and ranking, instead of about the mission of finding and educating future leaders from their state.”
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<p>This I can agree with, PSU is one example.</p>
<p>Front page of the NY Times ......interesting article on UF. They seem to be having an identity crisis. It rings true with us as many kids from my kids' prep school are at UF and could afford to go anywhere they wanted to. UF basically pays achievers to come there now. Didn't used to be that way.</p>
<p>UF slashing NMF scholarships is one of the reasons I'm not sure I'm going there... It used to be a completely free ride and now it's not...</p>
<p>Still though, UF is a very attractive alternative to 20 grand (at least) in loans. I'm crossing my fingers to get a nice aid package from one of the more prestigious institutions that I appied to, and if not, I have UF (and a new car) waiting for me... haha.</p>