<p>I had to step out for a while so I could work but I see the thread took an interesting turn. </p>
<p>For those who feel that The top 20 schools should not be providing financial aid think of it this way… One day my three financial aid receiving sons will have children that hopefully go off college. My sons will pay the full sticker price while my grandchildren will sit next to other kids who are receiving financial aid.
The principle behind financial aid is to make a college education available to everyone who has worked hard to get accepted. I don’t think I would want to imagine a campus anywhere in this country where only the rich attended. I think many people including the rich would find that unappealing. </p>
<p>By the way I would like to change it to MCHPY…The C stands for Cornell (I am just showing my Cornell pride)</p>
<p>Well it started out HYPSM due to the financial aid they offer, not prestige per say. Many feel Cornell doesn’t offer the same generous financial aid. So, if we ever got back to the original intent of the post, though I am enjoying the popcorn, it would have to stay HYPSM.</p>
<p>I think there are a lot of parents who feel they have been punished by many schools’ FA policy. Parents who had made conscious decision of having fewer kids, saved money (by cutting out everything but necessities), are paying much higher amount than parents who may have lived beyond their means. In POIH’s case, making 200K, sending his ONE D to private school and MIT, he is by no means living large, especially where he is living. If he had deferred some of his compensation to later(or have some pay in stock options), like some parents do, then he probably could very well be eligible for FA.</p>
<p>There are some wealthy parents who have made decisions to send their kids to public school in the name of supporting public schools or chose to live where it was convenient for them (may it be commuting or McMasion value), then later are shocked and dismayed by the quality of their school system AND lack of college guidance. That’s when I want to say, “Oh really? You had a choice of where you could have lived and where you wanted to send your kids to school, and no due dilegence was done to compare various town’s school systems?” In some areas people have no choice where they could live or what school to attend, but anyone who live around NYC, Chicago, San Fran…areas have many options.</p>
<p>Oldfort…I think POIH just wants the best for his daughter as does everyone else. He worked hard and has every right to purchase what he could buy. As I said earlier up thread it is the parents who could afford full pay but chose to put themselves above their kids that have me baffled. Everyone who is sending a kid to college makes sacrifices even the more wealthy families. The only people who do not feel the college crunch are those in the very high income bracket. </p>
<p>POIH…I think your thread about giving your daughter a very large allowance made most of us want to be adopted by you.</p>
<p>I think it’s discriminatory! Why should POIH’s daughter get $700 / month in allowance when other equally deserving people have to get less? I think POIH should be non-discriminatory and give $700 / month in allowance to everyone on this board. All in favor?</p>
<p>(POIH, I’m just teasing you here. You don’t have to explain how you spend your money to anyone. Well, maybe to MIT’s FA office if you want aid, and the government once a year, but beyond that, more power to you.)</p>
<p>We are considering cutting off D1 allowance next year (senior year). She is in the process of preparing a ppt presentation as to why it should be continued. I am waiting to see how convincing it’s going to be.</p>
<p>A private school that costs $35K / year, oldfort. Make no mistake – he’s entitled to send his daughter wherever he wants. But come off it. Schools at that level are the repository of the upper middle class and upper class elite, with a few scholarship kids thrown in.</p>
<p>I think it’s a bit much to expect parents of a baby to be doing the due diligence on what the counselors in the high schools are like when those people won’t be there in 18 years. Unless maybe there is a “Parents of Infants” subforum about to start on CC?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, if you read my post I said he wasn’t living large. He probably had to forego few personal luxuries in order to afford the tuition. Wheras there are plenty of parent who would rather live large and skim on their children.</p>
<p>Some of the wealthier colleges could afford to drastically cut tuition for all, or eliminate it altogether. Like the Metropolitan museum of art in New York, they could have a ‘suggested donation’ instead of tuition.</p>
<p>I also agree with oldfort- some parents make a conscious decision to have fewer kids and save money for college instead of going on expensive vacations or instead of buying fancy houses and cars. Financial aid policies ‘punish’ such parents for their frugality while ‘rewarding’ others for their profligacy. There is something distasteful about such outcomes.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m absolutely sure that POIH has foregone personal luxuries for his daughter’s education – it’s that important! And I think that’s noble on his part.</p>
<p>However, I guess I don’t understand feeling “punished” for his choices because MIT, one of the most generous schools in the country, hasn’t given him FA. He should feel blessed and lucky every day that he was in a position to be able to send daughter to a fabulous, elite private school AND one of the world’s great universities. Most of the students at MIT didn’t have the advantages in getting into that school as his daughter did. They didn’t have the sophistication and knowledge and resources of the Harker community behind them. </p>
<p>It’s glass half full, versus glass half empty.</p>
<p>So as I said … play this out. Tomorrow, HYPSM announces tuition will be free. What does this do to the applicants, the admissions process, the student body, any “divides” on campus between haves and have nots?</p>
<p>While 200K is an enviable salary, it by no means places one in the uber-rich category, particularly living in the Bay area.<br>
It’s equivalent to 119K in Atlanta, or 99K in Dallas. Nice, but not Warren Buffet.</p>
<p>Of the multiple issues under discussion on this thread, I’m going to comment on just one: It seems to me that a lack of transparency about the financial aid decision-making on many colleges’ parts heightens the sense of “unfairness.” </p>
<p>Back when I applied to college, my parents were startled to find that families in our town who were considerably better off had received higher financial aid packages. My family had been very frugal and therefore had tappable savings, while other families, with a higher income history over an 18-year period and no unusual expenses, did not have much savings available. If my parents had known this in advance, they might have made somewhat different choices . . . or they might have made the same choices–but understanding the implications of the choice to save would have considerably reduced the sense of unfairness. I think it’s safe to say that lots of people do not know how FA works. </p>
<p>Some years later, a colleague of mine, who did understand how FA works, bought an expensive home with a large mortgage, when his children were in high school. That worked out quite well for them in FA terms. I am not sure whether monthly mortgage obligations have the same preference that they may once have had, but certainly sinking savings into a home was the right strategy then. (I realize that the overall picture is not quite so clear now, in terms of home equity.)</p>
<p>There is more to it than that. How do you suppose the adcom now chooses between worthy poor kid and worthy rich kid? Knowing that this opportunity is really lifechanfing for worthy poor kid, whereas denial of worthy rich kid means - too bad, he’s forced to slum it at a “mere” top 10-20 school? </p>
<p>Frankly I can’t get why anyone should think HYPSM owe all students free tuition. They are private. I’d almost understand the argument better if it were made about a state school system.</p>