<p>Hello people, there are students will all kinds of backgrounds who would feel unsafe at a particular school–If ones political views were different, if religious views were different or they had no religion, if the student were gay, etc.</p>
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Yes, but this is a warrant for scratching a relatively small number of very specific schools. The idea that a student can only afford to attend a school fitting one of these categories seems rather unlikely to me.</p>
<p>Hello people, there are students will all kinds of backgrounds who would feel unsafe at a particular school–If ones political views were different, if religious views were different or they had no religion, if the student were gay, etc.</p>
<p>that only eliminates some schools…it doesn’t eliminate most schools. No one is saying that all schools are right for all students. The point is that many schools will work for various students. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t ever send my kid to an unsafe school, but that doesn’t mean that I would just blindly write a big check because my child stamped his foot and demanded that he would only apply to private schools because only those will “fit”…especially when there are private schools that have the negative things that you mentioned. Those negative things are not exclusive to state schools…no way.</p>
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<p>No matter what system you choose, someone will be treated unfairly. If we went to a system where students were admitted without looking at parental finances (and only at student finances), then the poorer students would be at even more of a disadvantage. Parents would no longer save for college in their children’s names, unless they were so wealthy that it would really make no difference if their children had to pay full tuition and board out of their trust accounts. </p>
<p>Since the colleges would then have a bunch of students who all need equal aid, that means sticker price gets reduced. Students from families that can help will get family help, meaning that students from families that made bad financial choices or who don’t want to pay still won’t get much help from their families. Students from the poorest families wouldn’t get any aid, so the reduced sticker price wouldn’t help at all. Meanwhile, all the students whose parents were able and willing to help out would end up paying. Some middle class families would be better off under this system IF they’d been saving for college. </p>
<p>Not all colleges are need-blind in admissions. If a college has a limited amount of aid dollars, then their admissions decisions need to consider this.</p>
<p>I imagine that certain less-accepting colleges could be dangerous to a gay, lesbian or transgendered student, to start. I can also imagine that Muslim or African American students may be endangered in some colleges where strong prejudices still apply. Certainly any school where a student would be so bullied or so pressured (academically or otherwise) that they become suicidal would be dangerous for that student. A school with a major party scene could be dangerous to a student with alcoholism issues…</p>
<p>edited to add: I see I posted at the same time as others making the same points. I’m in no way saying that only private schools would be safe for these students. This is just one more issue of “fit” that must be considered. Generally I would think that “fit” issues should eliminate a minority of schools, but for some students with very particular combinations of needs (social issues, learning disabilities, etc.) fit may be harder to find. I could easily imagine that there are cases in which a serious fit issue rules out all the public schools <em>in a particular state</em>.</p>
<p>I’m not saying there are only negatives to state schools- that’s ridiculous. I’m just saying that there are many different issues when it comes to “fit” and that fit is important and not necessarily because a kid is “pig-headed” and foot stomping! </p>
<p>Well said mathmomvt!</p>
<p>Hello people, there are students will all kinds of backgrounds who would feel unsafe at a particular school–If ones political views were different, if religious views were different or they had no religion, if the student were gay, etc.</p>
<p>I suppose you could put that person any where and if they felt threatened or challenged,* or anxious or nervous*, they could equate that with feeling “unsafe”.</p>
<p>But is that reality external, or is it something they are carrying around with them?</p>
<p>When a person is threatened or bullied because they are Muslim or gay, that is not “something they are carrying around with them.” It is external! Do you think people make up this stuff up?</p>
<p>Certainly you may experience harassment or other threatening behavior anywhere, from U Cal to Georgetown, but in most cases you would be hard pressed to fink a link between the harassment & the school.</p>
<p>Rather the opposite. Schools have clearly written guidelines, similar to this in Minn.
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<p>If the student is not prepared to advocate for themselves &/or find resources to allow them to do so, then that is another problem altogether.
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<p>An 18 year old just beginning his or her adult life should not have college cost determined by their parent income. </p>
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<p>College cost is college cost. It’s the same for all. The difference in cost among students may be offset by scholarships, but the cost itself is the same. What is different among students is the family’s (perceived) ability to pay. If all 18 year olds just beginning their adult lives were able to skip reporting any parent income, I would guess just about every 18 year old would have “full need.” Financing this with free money would be unsustainable. The result would be that those whose parents can help them out would; those whose parents are unable to help them out would not attend that school. The result would be that those who can still will … but the strides made to get those who cannot into school (and hopefully out of the cycle of poverty) will not be stopped dead. </p>
<p>I agree that colleges must control costs far better. I also think families need to understand that putting money aside for college is important …</p>
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<p>I don’t know. Maybe it is the fact that the schools were not that expensive? Washington State public universities. Maybe it was the fact that I was working my butt off and they combined my and my mom’s income regardless of whether she was claiming me on her taxes (she didn’t for three years but when that made NO DIFFERENCE for my financial aid package, we gave up).</p>
<p>Maybe it’s where her money was saved?</p>
<p>And it doesn’t explain my cousin who is in her first year of undergraduate.</p>
<p>Or my sister who also received zero in aid, while I was in college as well.</p>
<p>Maybe we just didn’t know how to play the game, but none of us got anything and my mom is a single parent with an associate’s, my cousin is the second in her family to go to college. I just truly believe you have to know how to juggle your money to get a Pell Grant, or have no savings.</p>
<p>We always had savings because when you’ve been poor, you don’t leave less than $3k in the bank. It’s just stupid unless you enjoy begging for money when something happens. I think that cut into what we could get. I don’t know. I never understood why so many people wore clothes from the mall, had cars, etc. and we had nothing like that, but we still weren’t eligible for aid.</p>
<p>MmeZeeZee - It sounds like it’s too late for the folks here to help out. If your sister and you had discovered this site earlier, I’m sure that the folks here could have guided you through the process. Unfortunately, it appears that you left a lot public and private dollars on the table - support that we all provide just for people like you, who truly need it.</p>
<p>*Maybe it was the fact that I was working my butt off and they combined my and my mom’s income regardless of whether she was claiming me on her taxes (she didn’t for three years but when that made NO DIFFERENCE for my financial aid package, we gave up).</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I think there is the issue. If you were working/earning/saving a lot, then that would drive up your EFC. When dependent kids (those under 24, undergrads, etc) earn a good amount of money, there is a natural expectation that a good portion is going to be used towards college. The thinking is that a dependent child who is earning more than - say $5k per year - can contribute a chunk towards his OWN costs.</p>
<p>the fact that your mom was a single mom with an associates doesn’t matter. What matters was how much she earned and how much you earned. Your mom’s savings would NOT have counted if it was under a certain amount (certainly under $15k).</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if your mom wasn’t giving you money. The system has to expect that parents will contribute to undergrad education or the system will fail. Hopefully, you were able to live at home rent-free during this time. If so, that was a contribution.</p>
<p>But, again, now you’re a grad student. Grad students are expected to pay for their own education…or get a college to give you a fellowship for it. It’s not the feds job (taxpayer money) to pay for people’s grad degrees.</p>
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People have pointed out various reasons, but no one has pointed to any particular school :(, which makes the argument rather in the abstract, IMHO.</p>
<p>Hello people, there are students will all kinds of backgrounds who would feel unsafe at a particular school–If ones political views were different, if religious views were different or they had no religion, if the student were gay, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, these are all reasons…but none point to a reason why a child can insist that he/she not apply to ONE state school. There’s only a few reasons why I can think a child would refuse to apply to any state schools.</p>
<p>Yes, in the second, third, and fourth years, my income from working 80 hours a week every summer and 20 - 40 hours per week throughout the school year was certainly a problem. 
But for the first year? That was when I decided to scrap my GPA and work, because I figured, “Nobody is going to pay for me but me.”</p>
<p>This time I feel I was really smart because I did my application before the tax return came in but after I paid off most of our Christmas expenses and car repair and had a root canal. HAH! I am going to tell my cousin to have her teeth fixed and file her FAFSA before the return comes in next year, too.</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m not expecting help–I graduated, have a career I love and am able to help support my family, loans are paid off by the way–I’m just contributing to what I thought was a kind of mope thread. 
I know I can pay for grad school by working, it just is irritating when you know that people are being told, “Apply for aid!” or “You should get aid!” when the reality is, people who are losing their houses, single parents, etc. are not eligible, much less children of two-income households.</p>
<p>There definitely are times when no matter how fair the rules try to be - in certain individual circumstances they fail, sometimes miserably.</p>
<p>On the subject of fit - I think the way this word is often used in college admissions/recruitment conjurs an image of romantic notions of what it means to “go away to college”. This can lead to student insistance that the only place for them is “Pricey School X” because they’ve earned it. I will say I’ve heard A LOT LESS of this since the economy tanked so I can only assume that many found fit had a more practical component - degree programs offered and return on investment.</p>
<p>Regarding safety at a campus - I’ve only known one student to have a bad experience that seemed to come from bias against the students’ background. And that incident took place at a 50K per year private school. So while incidents that shouldn’t ever happen do in fact occur - I don’t think the price or the public/private status of the school has much to do with it. </p>
<p>This year brought horrendous bullying incidents that resulted in a student jumping off a bridge to his death in despair - I don’t think a different school would have necessarily made the difference. Different roommate/dormmate would have made a difference - but nobody writes on their college essay “I’m a bigot who really can’t get along with people who don’t see the world the way I do” even if that is who they are. And when it turns out they aren’t kind and tolerant, no college leaves itself much wiggle room in moving kids around in a dorm, they have no free space and the RA’s function more like cheerleaders for good behavior than true authority figures at both public and private institutions. High school students smart enough to go to college are well aware that they are expected to be tolerant and kind - they don’t always manage, regardless of where they go to school. I’m not saying that there aren’t better and worse choices for a given student and some of the posters here may have unique situations in their immediate area, but those considerations are not typical in my experience.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Very true…</p>
<p>and, for the safety component…the only mom that’s told me that she’s concerned is a Yale mom after 3 frosh were mugged the first week of school. </p>
<p>On the subject of fit - I think the way this word is often used in college admissions/recruitment conjurs an image of romantic notions of what it means to “go away to college”. This can lead to student insistance that the only place for them is “Pricey School X” because they’ve earned it.</p>
<p>Exactly…it’s become largely an entitlement attitude.</p>
<p>I think you can use the word “fit” legitimately in talking about finding a good program for a student with learning disabilities or in certain academic disciplines where most of the critical instruction will come from one or two faculty members (such as music performance majors). Aside from that most questions regarding college choice can begin with affordability.</p>
<p>I can understand how a given student might not choose a religiously affiliated school because of a difference of beliefs but in my own state I can’t imagine that a kid couldn’t find a compatible program at one of the state schools - which are affordable, have smaller programs and campuses within the system, and offer many highly ranked programs. Some of those options would not put them in luxurious surroundings or my city of choice - but they would have a maketable degree to take wherever they choose after 4 years and very managable debt.</p>
<p>I’m not ruling out the possibility that for a given area of study in a very specialized field (like music performance) there might be difficulties in finding an affordable fit due to the unique and intense nature of the study, but for most people this isn’t the issue. I happened across a report from State U. regarding the beginning salaries of their recent graduates in the business school - it was very sobering to see that their averages were virtually identical to a 50K/year school often chosen for business within the same time frame. Very sobering indeed.</p>