The Admissions Gap (Washington Post)

[Consolation]

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It sounds like a couple of people have a grudge because they did not get as much financial aid as they wanted. Welcome to America, that’s the story of thousands of us struggling to afford a college education. I still don’t see any evidence that this university is any worse in that regard that others with a similarly high cost of attendance.

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<p>I have no grudge against the U of C. I actually went to the U of C for graduate school, and I love the place. I’m simply reporting the reality as experienced by one family vs the hype of FA there. (People on these boards often claim that the U of C has gone “no loan” because of Odyssey, which simply is not true.)</p>

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Quote:
… they had no problem saying that our family ought to borrow a sum equal to 2/3 of our annual income each year.
Nobody can compel you or your family to take out a loan.

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<p>No, REALLY?? </p>

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I gather what you are saying is that, when you got your financial aid letter, the breakdown of aid included a loan that was larger than you want to take, but you had not saved enough money to pay your expenses any other way.

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<p>You would be wrong. You have no idea what the circumstances of my family are, or why, or how much we have saved or anything else. I find your attitude condescending and unpleasant. </p>

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That is unfortunate and disappointing. I suspect many other universities are including large loans in their financial aid packages.

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<p>Well, you would be wrong again, at least for us. None of our FA packages, including that from the U of C, included any loans at all. The U of C simply left an enormous gap that would have had to be covered by an unrealistic amount of loans…which was made clear to them. (We appealed. They didn’t care.)</p>

<p>Several other leading institutions that claim to “meet need” actually did. Luckily, my kid preferred one of them to the U of C.</p>