http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/05/yield-remains-high-for-class-of-2020/
More than 90% of the families qualify for a great deal at Harvard but they admitted only slightly more than 50% who get the financial aid, including 20% who pay nothing. So almost 50% of Harvard attendees this year are almost full pay.
Hmmm, once out of warranty, BMW maintenance and repair tends to be very expensive, and BMWs tend not to be as reliable as, for example, a Toyota Prius. Meanwhile, the Ford Fiesta owner’s scheduled maintenance costs $39.95 at the Ford dealer. Also, a Ford Fiesta, even a top of the line sporty ST model, should cost substantially less than $30,000.
I’m not sure tuition is a concept. It’s certainly not useless for those who expect to pay the full amount (as someone else pointed out). I think those of us with kids in or going to college deal with two numbers: a sticker price and an actual tuition. If a student gets financial aid or merit aid, the actual tuition will be lower than the sticker price. The article is actually more focused on the reasons college lower sticker prices and the complications and confusions that come with that process. It seems to be more about the colleges than about those who are paying for college.
But often the cost is not exactly equal, and not all families are savvy enough about college to realize that COA and the actual cost of the students education are not the same. A family trying to decide whether it’s worth it to pay more for a higher ranked school should know whether or not that school is putting more resources into educating its students than its lower priced competition.
In particular we see this when families are constructing the initial list-the student puts a UMass on the list but nixes an Amherst because the elite private school’s listed tuition is more than twice that of the state school. For some families the state school is a better value, for some the private is, but the tuition cost alone does not tell the whole story.
On another note, one thing that drives me nuts is when schools tout their low tuition costs but then jack up the COA by tacking on a whole bunch of fees- activity fees, lab fees, enrollment fees, studio fees, technology fees, administrative fees…
Perhaps not everyone. For example, a non-financial-aid non-Michigan-resident student pays tuition of $45,410 to $48,598 at the University of Michigan, according to https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-attendance/ . But the University of Michigan spends $31,219 per student on instruction, student services, academic support, operations / maintenance, and institutional support, according to http://www.collegemeasures.org/4-year_colleges/institution/University-of-Michigan-Ann-Arbor-MI/scorecard/cost-per-student/ .
Many other public universities likely have similar situations where non-resident tuition exceeds the spending on education and support services per student.
Are we really going to get that literal? Someone raised the car concept and I ran with it, but you obviously don’t have to pay maintenance costs on a college education.
The point is, not everyone considers a BMW to be more desirable than a Ford Fiesta.
No. Fullpay families, especially OOS ones at public universities, are subsidizing.
Wouldn’t this always be $0 to $COA? There are going to be some student who pay nothing and some who are full pay.
Sure, and as I said, both cars will get you to your destination.
To take this back to colleges, some kids will prefer the seemingly less expensive but in reality worse value school for other than financial reasons. It may have better programs in the student’s major, or be closer to home, or provide the social environment they prefer. That’s all fine, but what the original op-ed was talking about was ways of making the cost of the student’s education clearer. I would welcome this information.
Good point, although I would think universities could break it down by school, as they already have different tuition or fee prices.
There are some schools that never cover the full price and others that give all full-pay kids a “merit” scholarship to encourage then to attend.
@Sue22, which?
Even at the schools where 90% of the student body get merit scholarships, there are some who are full-pay.
And the other extreme, I think, is tough to find as well.
http://time.com/money/4021009/best-private-colleges-scholarships/
There was a CC thread a while ago (a year or so?) about colleges that charge high tuitions but then attract full pay students by giving them “merit” scholarships to make them feel special.
Sadly, schools that cover full need are in the minority.
Sorry, but I consider that an absurd statement and gross over-generalization. There are dozens of reasons someone might choose your so-called Podunk (which I suspect given your previous posts means anything that is not ranked in the top 30 of USNWR but feel free to correct me on that) over Princeton, even if costs are the same. Perhaps they came to decide on a major that Podunk offers and Princeton doesn’t. That really does happen, you know. Perhaps Princeton is far away and Podunk is close, and they came to realize that certain personal issues meant staying close to home was important. You are probably saying “But then why apply to Princeton?”. Because of all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is keeping ones options open. After all, if they didn’t apply and decided too late they wanted Princeton over Podunk, it would be too late, wouldn’t it. The time between applying in the fall and having to decide by May 1 is a very long time in their world at that time of their life. Not everything is clear and totally resolved at the time of applying in many cases.
I could quickly tick off at least a dozen other reasons Podunk might be preferable to Princeton for a student. Assuming you stopped to think about those kinds of reasons at all and chose to ignore them or reject them, it can only mean you think every family is just like yours, and what is a logical and right decision for you and your kids is right for all. I can assure you that is not the case. I urge you to stop making such sweeping, declarative, and cookie-cutter generalizations. It simply doesn’t reflect reality and doesn’t really add to the conversation.
Also, the claim to “meet full need” may mean less than what it seems, since each college may define “need” differently.
@fallenchemist
Sure,y comment is a big generalization. But isn’t the premise of this thread just one big generalization?
^That’s why the schools’ Common Data Sets are so useful. Divide the “received aid” number (H2b) by the “requested aid” number (H2d) to see what percentage of those who applied for aid were granted it. It’s never going to be 100%, and frankly shouldn’t be, but obviously the higher % schools are more generous in defining need.
I love the Common Data Set!
@PrimeMeridian, you have to admit your comment was pretty insulting to kids who choose a local/state/less competitive school over one of the big guns. To go back to my UMass/Amherst analogy, a student who knew they wanted to pursue a degree in engineering would be foolish to choose Amherst over UMass considering that Amherst doesn’t offer an engineering degree, or even a 3-2 program, while UMass has an entire college of engineering.
The only point I was apparently very poorly articulating is that the heavily endowed/subsidized schools are pretty darn obvious.
It is implicit that if a school doesn’t have the major you seek, there’s no point in considering it.
And for the record, if you review my hundreds of posts, you’ll see I have very consistently stood on a soapbox to preach to people that their career success & life’s happiness is not reliant upon going to bling-name U. I have explicitly stated over and over that State U is often a better value for engineering, and that LAC 3-2 engineering programs are a waste of an additional year’s time & tuition.
Not even in the same ballpark. In one case you are talking about people, in the other about a sticker price. One cannot even begin to compare the impact of over-generalizing about one compared to the other. Also, I would wager at most of the private schools at least, and probably at most 4 year schools, more than half the students get some kind of FA. So that would not make it an over-generalization to say sticker price is losing it s relevance.