@BelknapPoint Hi.
My intention is not to denigrate Middlebury. It seems like a lovely school. I use it only as an example of the type of school that a good, but not exceptional Northeast student had a reasonable expectation of attending and affording in 1982.
As for the CSS issue, it is part of the larger “holistic” admission, and general lack of transparency issue that permeates the higher education system ( primarily private, but also in California, apparently, and maybe some other states). This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to determine what, exactly, the schools are doing financially, how they make admission and pricing decisions.
There is a tendency on this site to view the sticker price as “the price” and to view “financial aid” as a form of charity. I look at it differently. These schools are choosing to set different prices for different customers, depending upon criteria which are less than clear. The government required the use of “net price calculators” to try to help people to determine what price they are likely to be charged, but schools are free to set their own formulas and to make changes to the formulas based on their institutional priorities and needs. We really don’t know what goes into their pricing decisions.
Anyway, I assure you that my comments about Middlebury had no hidden meaning. If you like, substitute “Bates” or “Colby” or “Holy Cross” or “Generic Private College” for Middlebury.
What I was trying to get at, apparently clumsily, was that no one really knows how or why the private colleges choose their students and how or why they come up with their formulas for financial aid.
We do know that schools that are allegedly “need blind” somehow come up with remarkably stable percentages of full pay and financial aid students every year. A skeptical person might suggest that the schools are not as “need blind” as they hold themselves out to be.
Harvard, for example, defines “need” in a much more generous fashion than most of the private schools in the country. This ought to result in a much higher percentage of students receiving aid than at, say, Middlebury, right? Yet, year after year, we see a remarkably consistent percentage of Harvard students who receive Pell Grants, Harvard students that receive aid, and Harvard students that are full pay. How can that be? Could it be that these schools may be stretching the truth a bit when they market themselves as high minded purveyors of idealism and social progress? Could it be that they are self-interested entities just like everybody else in the world?
These are Private schools, and they are entitled to engage in whatever degree of “Holistic” theater they wish, but I grow impatient supporting their activities with public tax breaks and with facilitating the influx of vast sums of money into their coffers through the maintenance of tax deductions for the contributors.
I also am entitled to my feelings of frustration and disappointment with the situation. By the way, I do indeed know how to say “no” to my kids and do it frequently. It helps that we communicate freely and they understand the current college landscape quite well.