<p>So far the Class of 2017 seems full of kids who were very wealthy back home. Especially the International students.</p>
<p>I do appreciate that most of them don't brag about it or think better of themselves because of it.</p>
<p>Anyone else have this experience at Cornell? It's quite a shock coming from a large public high school.</p>
<p>International kids who attend a college that offers little financial aid to international kids tend to be rich. What’s surprising about that?</p>
<p>It’s not surprising but it changes the sort of interactions you have with people here. Only slightly, though, most people I’ve met are pretty down to earth.</p>
<p>“Wealthy” might equate to people who pay the full tuition. Cornell needs for half the student body to do that. Just economics. SOMEONE has to pull the cart. My S doesn’t feel any socio-economic divisions among students. It’s a huge university, so some people probably play that game, but it’s easy to avoid. Don’t go looking for issues with what kids have money at home. They can’t help where they come from. Just move forward and judge people on whether you like them or not.</p>
<p>I don’t think the median student at Cornell is wealthy. Roughly 50% of the class is full-pay, but that doesn’t really mean you’re rich-- just well-off. </p>
<p>With that said, yes, most of the social power brokers are in fact wealthy.</p>
<p>^ I can tell you from experience that paying full tuition doesn’t necessarily mean a family is wealthy - just planned and made some sacrifices. If someone really believes that the “social power brokers” are wealthy, I feel bad for that person. What a horrible, insecure way to view the world. All kids at Cornell are obviously accomplished and have the potential to do whatever they want. Look beyond the checkbook to evaluate people.</p>
<p>Agree with Swimmer. We are not “wealthy”, but our D pays the full shot at one of the Contract Colleges. If she was at one of the Endowed Schools, we would get approx. $10,000 in aid. </p>
<p>That’s what I said. Full-pay doesn’t mean you’re rich. Cornell does, however use 20% of the full-pay to provide financial aid for others. (So if you’re full-pay, 80% of your tuition fees are actually for your costs and 20% go towards others) IMO, that’s a little unfair because they’re penalizing a lot of middle-class families who just saved well. They should use the endowment instead or something.</p>
<p>And yes, you can believe me or not, but most of the kids in top Greek houses (if you’re into that) tend to be pretty wealthy. How do you expect a middle-class kid to be able to afford cocaine? Cornell’s mainstream social scene is largely a microcosm of society.</p>
<p>I am not sure that the information you are stating above is correct. It has been my understanding that FA is determined largely demonstrated need determined by parental income, first and foremost,t and then parental savings at a certain percentage above and beyond protected assets allowed by FAFSA - at 5 percent. Any assets in the student’s name are taken at 20 percent,. As far as the endowment, this is a function of the college, with the Arts college having the ;largest endowment, as well as the largest overall pricetag. and thus, more money granted by the endowment and not the tuition of other students.</p>
<p>There is a wide variability in the middle class, determined by many factors - location, size of family, income level, etc… just as there is a wide variability among the more elite. The constant in the more elite class is s that they can afford more brand name items, better quality activities, trips, that a middle class student may not be able to afford. That said, none of this has stopped my very middle class D from fitting in at Cornell. She has learned to be a very savvy shopper (ebay etc) and budgeter so that she can indulge once in a while with her “richer” friends…</p>
<p>Saugus where are you getting this information?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you read this:
<a href=“http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/give/docs/StudentAidFAQ_0312_v3b.pdf”>http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/give/docs/StudentAidFAQ_0312_v3b.pdf</a>
</p>
<p>I am guessing that Saugus is basing his statement on the Wall Street Journal article of Jan 10. Sadly Im too computer illiterate to link the article here. </p>
<p>^
Just highlight the URL, right click copy, and the right click paste in the text box here.</p>
<p>But no, I’m a student here.</p>
<p>Eh, as a young alum who graduated in the last few years, Cornell has its share of wealthy students like all the Ivies just due to the sheer cost of attendance but I do think the demographic on this forum is heavily distorted towards the wealthier side of the distribution. And as mentioned by others above, international students tend to come from wealthier backgrounds due to the cost to them (no federal loans, etc).</p>
<p>Anyways, if you need anecdotal evidence, my family was active-duty military when I attended, one of my suitemates freshman year was an EMS/firefighter paying his own way through college, and another friend had a father who worked in the automotive industry and faced some economic hardship in attending when the recession started.</p>
<p>Might have something to do with it costing $40-50k and offering no merit scholarships. </p>
<p>$60K.</p>
<p>S1 decided against any of the Ivies as an option due to no merit. You will have wide disparity in a situation like that simply because it invites the wealthy and the poor, but leaves out the middle with no shot. If you call yourself ‘well off’ you are rich compared to normal people. </p>
<p>@Torveaux–three of the seven undergrad colleges at Cornell are the Land Grant colleges. As such, NY state residents pay $16/year less in tuition to attend those three colleges. OOS residents pay the full $60K to attend those three and all students pay the full $60K to attend the other four, but Human Ecology, ILR and the Ag schools offer a bit of a break to NY state families. Am not saying that $44K is an easy number to pay, but it does bring COA down for a fair number of students. </p>
<p>As a general rule most elite private universities have a bimodal distribution of students being full pay and no pay. The upper middle class students are at the state flagship honors programs with merit aid. The Ivy schools are a bit better than the elite non-Ivy schools but the upper middle class get hurt the most with college education costs (and taxes).
The growth in international students in the US is driven by revenue and ranking. Even state flagships are courting “full pay” international students with high test scores since there aren’t enough of these students in the USA. </p>