“Most colleges are need-blind, so that is a poor indicator of anything else.”
Most private colleges are NOT need-blind, at least not for all applicants. The need-blind elites are a small group, though they get most of the attention on CC.
I believe the comment meant that most colleges admit anyone who meets their standards, regardless of income, but then they typically leave a large gap between aid and cost. The college may tell students - take out PLUS loans if you really want to attend.
Most colleges don’t have a full set of family financial information available when they make admissions decisions. Some use techniques to target the people who are most likely to be able to be full pay, and I imagine some are very aware of applicants who are likely to be very high need.
Also, be wary - some colleges that brag that they “meet 100% of need for accepted students” are able to accomplish that feat by denying admittance to qualified students who have insufficient family incomes and assets. One clue to this policy is if the college requires a full set of family financial information to be submitted a month or more before the admission decision comes out.
From the Insideeducation article linked above: “At Sweet Briar, there is a movement afoot to save the college. The effort raised $40,000 by Wednesday evening, the day after Sweet Briar announced it plans to close. But the campaign says it needs $20 million.”
Thank you, Hanna! I read that last night, late and on the IPad, so I didn’t respond, thinking I must be misunderstanding. Thanks for coming back to that.
Additionally, some schools that were totally need-blind are now only partially need blind – 85% for instance. I think that’s the financially responsible thing to do unless you are one of the colleges with huge endowments.
Just to make sure people don’t get further confused – being need-blind and meeting 100% of need are two different things.
Looking around http://www.collegedata.com , most private colleges I sampled claim that they are need-blind.
Of course, most do not claim to “meet full need” (and those that do may have varying definitions of “full need”).
Really, there are four categories here:
Need-blind, claims to “meet full need”: small number of mostly elite colleges
Need-blind, does not claim to “meet full need”: probably the vast majority of colleges (e.g. NYU, Penn State, community colleges, etc.)
Need-aware, claims to “meet full need”: small number of colleges
Need-aware, does not claim to “meet full need”: are there any?
I just don’t believe this, ucb: Need-blind, does not claim to “meet full need”: probably the vast majority of colleges (e.g. NYU, Penn State, community colleges, etc.)
There are thousands of colleges out there.
I think this list is as good as any …
In reaction to a couple posts upthread, I just want to say that I’m more than happy with people naming colleges they think will fail in CC, even though it’s a public forum. I say this for two reasons:
list I have a child in the midst of developing a list of possible colleges right now and she leans toward the SLAC side of things, and I don’t know that sector well enough, so even rumors—whether positive or negative!—are interesting and give me stuff to look at as part of my unemotional due diligence side of the process; and
(2) do people really think that somebody saying something negative about a school on CC is going to lead to a death spiral of an otherwise healthy school? I mean, people say negative things, sometimes even rising to the level of allegations of criminal activity, about schools here all. the. time. (Okay, not that often, but not all that infrequently, really.) It’s pretty well understood that this forum is a lightly moderated space, and rumors fly around—and I think people have pretty much gotten over the “if it’s on the internet it must be true” gullibility of the 90s. (Also, it can lead to really, really interesting—to me, at least—exchanges, like the mini-subthread about Bard upthread.)[/list]
So please, I say to keep those surmisings about colleges’ financial health coming!
I think if a school is really in so much trouble that one or two posts on CC can kill it then it might be a good idea to let people know before they apply. Chances are that school is in serious trouble already and this thread is just the last straw and that’s something that college students and their families deserve to know.
The list does not have thousands of colleges total, so it must be incomplete. Indeed, the list of need-blind, but does not claim to “meet full need”, colleges should include all of the California public schools (112 community colleges, 23 CSUs, 9 UCs), since they obviously do not “meet full need” for out-of-state students.
Being “need blind” for admissions is worth the same as a warm bucket of spit.
Getting into College X and then “gapping” the kid for financial aid is not something to cheer. Basically, you are accepting the kid but telling him you will never able to attend. Or you can come here if your family is OK with winding up in bankruptcy court. All the kid gets is the ability to say “hey, I got into College X but won’t be going there.” Why bother.
Only the very small elite band of schools can plausibly claim to meet all financial need. And as we all know, having your “financial need” (as defined by the colleges) met doesn’t mean the familiy can afford the school.
The best practice, by far, is for schools to be more transparent to the families about the net costs. Being “need aware” for admissions is more honorable than being need blind/gapping.
While that is more honorable, it isn’t nearly as good for marketing. “Horrors!! You rejected my kid just because he is poor!! What has this country/this college come to.”
Also, need blind schools can adjust their admissions criteria to manage the number of needy students even without looking at whether an applicant applied for aid.
I highly doubt SLC is in danger shutting down operations and that goes for the other schools mentioned as well. Please… None of predictors cited stand alone as reason for concern: rural, lac, discount rate, womens ??? Nope. Decreasing enrollment? Over spending on facilities? Executive mismanagement? Probably.
Back to Sweet Briar, this is an interesting essay from a former student who later transferred to UVa:
Having witnessed a similar thing take place at a nonprofit institute I used to be affiliated with, the question you always ask yourself is, Did they wait too long to inform their inner circle of the need to deal with a possible financial crisis?
The fact that Sweet Briar alumnae appear to be so totally taken aback by the decision, makes me wonder if Sweet Briar’s administration communicated with them early enough about the need to shore up their endowment.
My guess is that the wealthiest were told and, for whatever reason, chose not to respond. If that’s not the case, expect this process to be long and drawn out … and possibly ugly.
Alumnae are very upset not to have been included. I realize the BOD was still trying different strategies to get money flowing and not broadcast, that this was failing, turning even more applicants away. But even at what they deemed the end for the legacy and the common courtesy, alumnae should’ve been given more than 30 minutes notice before the rest of the world!
Alumnae have started http://www.savingsweetbriar.com
I hate contributing to the hijacking re need-blind admissions, but the plain and simple fact is that MOST colleges and universities in the country are need-blind for admissions. Most have precious little money to shell out for anyone at all, and thus leave it up to the family to determine whether or not the place can be made affordable if an applicant is accepted.
It is one thing for people without an affiliation to be oblivious to the dire situation at Sweet Briar, and quite a number for alumnae to pretend to be surprised and blindsided. Isn’t safe to assume that the college --as about all others-- is often sending messages about the need to support the school.
The reality is that many must have thought that a 100MM endowment might be sufficient to survive the current crisis. On the other hand, the dwindling applications and enrollment should have been hard to miss. The reality is that the support by alumnae has not been enough, and that mounting efforts after the fat lady did sing the last note will be too little and too late. Even if the campaign reached multiples of the $40,000, it will not change much to the fact that undoing the past is not feasible.
I think there were more indications of trouble. It’s just that serious efforts to save the school in the past were not seen as danger signals. A cursory search turns up this from 2009: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/30/sweetbriar
To all the other lists of warning signs, let’s add, has the college ever suspended retirement contributions, and have administrators ever agreed to work without pay.
And then this article dates from 2012, about three years ago: http://www.wsls.com/story/20862216/cutbacks-planned-at-sweet-briar-college.
etc., including all the issues covered in this week’s official announcement, including the endowment draw. This should not have come as a surprise to the Sweet Briar Alumnae, when it’s already been a long story on the TV news.
I think this is exactly it.
Unfortunately, what typically happens (and to be clear I have no idea what transpired at SBC) is that the longtime major donors feel like they’re constantly being hit up for large donations while others–for whatever reason–aren’t “pulling their weight.” Some of this is inevitable. If the school was already having a hard time meeting its enrollment goals, it likely didn’t have the luxury of courting a lot of full-pay students who would later be the foundation of a generous alumnae base.
If Sweet Briar alumnae haven’t been successful over the last generation in persuading their own daughters and granddaughters to attend, and the college wasn’t successful at replacing these wealthy students with wealthy students from other places, the handwriting was likely on the wall.
If word gets out that the bank “may” be failing, the bank has already failed. The only way to stop the run on the bank is to keep it from starting.
The BOD has no choice but to keep it as quiet and private as possible while they huck the last few hail mary passes. In hindsight, SBC seems to have done a surprisingly good job keeping this possibility from getting much attention.
Once you decide to shut down, you shut it down immediately. You can’t keep it open one day longer than the minimum necessary - which is the end of the current semester.
Actually, they are (responsibly) keeping it open well beyond the end of the current semester so that students can continue to earn credit (elsewhere) during the summer, but have it included in their SBC transcripts. Another thoughtful thing to do.