<p>I went to college on full financial aid to a private college. I am thrilled to be able to pay full price for all of my children to go to privates, especially if it helps other students with finaid. </p>
<p>Hilsa- did you apply to Univ of FL?</p>
<p>I think what is unstated in this discussion is that college admissions is a profession that is and must be run, to a large extent, like a business. While colleges must have the financial resources to operate, they must also be aware of their class stats. A practice of admitting full-pay, but with lower SATs/GPAs is ok for the business for a short time to meet a short term income need, but in the long run a continuing practice will damage the quality of the product (education) and ultimately, like any business that lowers quality for the sake of profit, will find that as the product image declines, so does income. USNEWS will see to that. I don't think colleges are really giving away anything when they provide merit scholarships to attract smart kids. All they are doing is protecting the product. In the end, it is always better to be smart than rich...Bill Gates didn't start out rich, but he did start out smart. Parents are understandably emotional about the process because they are talking about their kids and their money. I don't think that for one minute college admissions officers are anything but all business...and that business is protecting the product's image. Given this model, smart kids are an attractive product that colleges should pay for. Is it an entitlement, no, but it is worth a lot in the college market. Who wants to send their kids to a school known for admitting dumb kids...rich or poor? Also note, I am using the terms smart and dumb for the sake of the discussion. Any kid who can get into any college is smart.</p>
<p>Actually, while Bill Gates is far wealthier than his father, he started out at least upper-middle class. His father was a founding partner of Preston Gates & Ellis, one of the most prominent Seattle law firms. Bill went to Lakeside School, one of Seattle's most prestigious private prep schools.</p>
<p>On the larger point, however, you are entirely correct -- colleges and universities are a business. Although they are non-profit, their success and longevity come from measures other than profit. Reputation, rank, financial stability are all measures of success. Our kids are in college for only 4 years (we hope). College presidents are often there for 10 or more years, and faculty and senior staff are often there for 30 years or more. </p>
<p>While we hope and expect our kids will get a great education at the college they attend, it is also good to realize that colleges are larger enterprises that have goals and measures of success beyond the purely altruistic.</p>
<p>Dadx3, to add to my thought...My post was a reaction to an eariler post saying that the poster could never understand why smart kids feel entitled to a free $50,000 education. I recall reading a study by Colgate and Cornell? business professors demonstrating the dramatic fall off of full-pay students the lower the college is ranked by USNews. Perhaps not justified by the actual quality of education received at the lower ranked institution, nevertheless, I can only assume that it is a well known fact within the college admissions business. Attracting smart kids (and their stats used in part by USNews to rank) to the institution through merit scholarships is not an act of misplaced charity...it is, at least to some extent, a cold hard-headed business decision, that in the end is good for the institution and the students who attend and graduate from it and the parents who pay.</p>
<p>It's always a good time to be a smart rich kid.</p>
<p>I agree with Hawaiiboy15. I also disagree with the Williams pres. A smart rich kid had it made once upon a time when that was all the top school were focused on getting. They needed more kids than they had space and often had to fill it with the not so smart rich kids as well in those days. I know some folks who went through the college admissions process when it was pretty much automatic you got into an ivy or any of the top schools if you had the money and the academic profile. These days it's still a crap shoot for kids that have both with the accept rates in the most desired schools in single digits.</p>
<p>I think that the admissions pictures are going to still be competitive in the most selective college. Where the real windfall in admissions will come in the less known schools that will really be hurting for full pays.</p>
<p>totally agree with cpt.....it will be "down the tier food chain" where this will have the biggest impact....</p>
<p>Is there ever a bad time to be a rich kid? (regardless of whether smart or not-to-smart)</p>
<p>^^ when colleges decide they want to change their demographic profile???</p>
<p>don't much matter which college they go to if they start out rich. Did Harvard/Brown really provide that differential education to the Kennedy clan? Would their careers have been any different if they attended UMass? :D</p>
<p>good point.....rich is rich is rich.....</p>
<p>But, ability to pay full freight is not rich, but upper middle class or well-to-do. Only a small number of those who can pay full freight can donate buildings. It probably won't affect Bill Gates's children if they go to HYP or not (though they'll get in so long as grades/SATs are not deplorably bad). But, if you are the daughter of a surgeon in Nashville, your life might be changed substantially by attending Harvard.</p>
<p>Harvard, though, is need blind.....the daughter of the surgeon who can full pay would not really get a bump for it there...if that's what you're referring to, shaw.....I think the full pay people who are not developmental (i.e. cannot donate buildings) will only get an advantage at schools that are need aware....just my opinion.....isthat what you are referring to?</p>
<p>I agree. At truly need blind places, being well to do but not developmental gives no advantage. It will be, as someone said, lower down in the food chain that ability to pay by itself will confer an advantage. But, those people might, unlike the developmental folks, actually experience a meaningful change as a result of going to Harvard.</p>
<p>Bingo Shawbridge.</p>
<p>Rodney, your point is valid unless you're among those, like me, who have a hard time believing these colleges who somehow come up with the same percentage of full pays every year are truly need blind.</p>
<p>Williams is need blind so I find it fascinating that these words escaped it's President's mouth.</p>
<p>
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But, if you are the daughter of a surgeon in Nashville, your life might be changed substantially by attending Harvard.
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<p>yeah, but would that substantial change be so much different if the D attended Vandy or Tulane or Miami, or (gasp) Tennessee instead? If so, how?</p>
<p>At a very recent college visit, they said they are set for next year with aid $, since that $ was set up already. It is actually the class of college 2014 who will feel it more than our class of 2013. Also, they first have to fill the obligations for 4 year scholarships given to all the returning soph junior and senior class. I knew back in Sept putting 'not applying for aid' would be a plus this year.</p>
<p>^ Very good point, Mom4X. Adcoms and FA offices are right now making admissions decisions and FA offers based on budgets they were given for FY08-09. While many schools are making some cuts in their FY08-09 budgets, most are making every effort to shield FA from those cuts. Most schools will face bigger cuts in FY09-10 because that's when cuts in state legislative appropriations will start to hit the publics hard; that's when two years of shrunken endowments will start to dominate the level of endowment payouts (typically based on a 3-year moving average of endowment assets); and that's when parental job losses and shrunken parental assets will start to show up in FAFSAs and PROFILES in a big way. And unless there's a quick economic rebound (which no one's counting on at this point) even deeper cuts, and higher need-based demands for FA, are in store for FY10-11. So the impact on admissions and FA budgets will be much greater for the HS classes of 2010 and 2011.</p>
<p>
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There Has Never Been A Better Time To Be A Smart, Rich Kid
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There has never been a better time to be a rich kid of any intelligence level. By rich I mean so wealthy that losing half the family fortune in "paper losses" doesn't even put the butler or gardener in danger of layoff.
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<p>Clearly there is quite a bit of hyperbole floating around here. It wasn't that long ago, maybe only 30-40 years ago, when rich kids - whether qualified or not - could basically go to nearly any school they wanted. George Bush and John Kerry have both admitted to being mediocre students, yet they still both got into Yale. Al Gore barely graduated in the top half of his high school class yet still got into Harvard, which was the only school to which he even applied. Let's face it. The top colleges have been playgrounds for the rich and elite for most of the nation's history, and the notions of not only meritocracy in terms of college admissions but also of full financial aid for the poor being are recent phenomena. Richard Nixon was a brilliant but poverty-stricken high school student who got into Harvard and Yale but couldn't afford either despite scholarships that paid for the entire tuition package because they didn't cover living costs. </p>
<p>Personally, I think we should be thankful that we live in a time when college admissions are actually relatively meritocratic and where the top schools have pledged to provide extensive financial aid packages to poorer students despite the decline of their endowments. Whatever one might say about the travails of the current economic maladies, things are clearly far better than they were in the old days.</p>
<p>several years ago, my husband and I attended a dinner honoring the chairman of the advertising company where my husband worked. (This CEO was a patron of the arts.) Suffice it to say, the other CEO's (chairman of Allied-Signal, chairman of Time-Warner, etc.) who were giving testimonials were his deke frat brothers from Colgate. Not a Yalie in the bunch. Clearly in that generation (the fifties), Colgate was the place to be.</p>