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<p>Yes, and maybe that would bother me if it wasn’t an education. It’s not a house or a car, it is a kid’s education, and I like the idea of it being made available to people who can’t afford the sticker price.</p>
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<p>That is actually true at Harvard and it’s the best argument I’ve heard for them not charging so much in tuition.</p>
<p>Wow, this has been a eye-opening thread. I’m learning the FA game from all of you.</p>
<p>Just a little word about those vacation homes … With the economy the way it is, trying to sell that “asset” to fund college is nearly impossible. People are not buying at any price, so it really is a detriment. I guess they could try to take a loan out on it, but the banks have been stingy there too. So I can see where the current economy makes that asset not an asset at all. I guess maybe they can try to rent it out…</p>
<p>I know a family with a vacation home that would gladly sell it, but can’t. Hubby has been unemployed for awhile.</p>
<p>I do see that those that spent all their money instead of saving it for a rainy day are rewarded with more financial aid than those of us who ate at home more, didn’t take many or expensive vacations, rented movies instead of going to the theater, etc. I do see where my children learned a valuable life skill, but it’s hard to now turn around and tell them that because we were frugal, they will now have a harder time qualifying for financial aid. (Our case is more unique here…hubby has been out of work a long time, and we are living off an inheritance - money we had for college.)</p>
<p>We always expected to pay all of our kids college costs, but in our current situation, we had hoped to qualify for some help. We saved etc, but we live in an area where home equity has gone up and that is our big asset. So I guess any college looking at that will be off our kids’ lists. Bummer…</p>
<p>There’s a wonderful opt out system available for anyone who doesn’t like having their personal finances under a microscope by the college FA office. Don’t apply. College thinks that tuition for little Jonny is more important than putting in a swimming pool? Gosh, that’s none of their business.</p>
<p>Nobody is forcing you to apply for aid, nobody is forcing you to apply at all. But if you want your kid sitting in their classroom, sleeping in their dorm room, you play by their rules. Which means if they determine that all things being equal, you can afford to pay tuition, they will charge you full tuition. If they determine that you can’t, they will try to subsidize the difference between what you can afford and what they are charging. If you don’t want to pay what they think they you can pay then it’s real simple- don’t send your kid there.</p>
<p>I don’t get being aggravated that the school thinks you can pay more than you think you can. The solution is so simple, don’t send your kid and don’t get aggravated.</p>
<p>People do without for all sorts of reasons- people who live in shabby houses which need a paint job but they go to Europe every summer, people who drive fancy cars but haven’t saved a penny for retirement; people who live very modestly but give extraordinary amounts to charity. I don’t get to tell them how to live. But to decide that although you can afford full freight but don’t want to pay it, that somehow financial aid is a scam and you are a victim- this I don’t understand.</p>
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<p>It’s not the school’s policy that keeps you from looking at the records, it happens to be federal law. You can’t pin that one on the school.</p>
<p>At the same time, you don’t have to send in any of those financial aid forms. There’s no law forcing you to do that. </p>
<p>An elite school has a tuition and you, the student, can agree or not agree to pay for it. If you, the student, can’t afford it, you can find other ways to find the money. You can ask your parents for it, you can find outside scholarships, you can take loans etc. You can even ask the elite school to help you out, but then again, the elite school will say that they will help you out based on your family’s financial circumstances and may decide whether they will or will not help you out based on that. It’s the institutions choice.</p>
<p>Why should an elite school be required to pay for student X? On what basis do we agree that a school like Harvard should be forced to pay? Because they can?</p>
<p>So what you are saying is that Harvard should pay because they can, but that a rich parent, who also can pay, shouldn’t have to.</p>
<p>We are all about choice, aren’t we. Isn’t that the American way?</p>
<p>I think we would all agree that it would not be reasonable to have a law in place that forces a parent to pay an elite school’s tuition (or portion thereof).</p>
<p>Yet you all want to force the elite school to pay for that student. Why is it the elite school’s responsibility at all to pay for that student?</p>
<p>If a parent can decide what he or she wants to do with his or her money, why can’t a school? What’s unfair about that?</p>
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<p>H owns a third of a family property that is nothing but an albatross for us, and which negatively impacted S’s FA at several schools to the point where the gap exceeded our annual income. The OTHER owners live 5 hours away from the place and use it several times a year. WE live either 2+ days drive or a plane ride plus a car rental plus a 6-hour drive away from it. We cannot afford to go there. We cannot sell our share or borrow against it. They won’t buy us out. In fact, they recently demonstrated that they were willing to have US have to sell our actual home rather than sell this vacation property or buy us out.</p>
<p>In what way is being tied to this place anything but a negative?</p>
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<p>I hope this was intended as irony.</p>
<p>If not, I hope–I guess–that you never fall afoul of the kind of events that leave many hard-working, diligently-saving, responsible parents unable to pay for their kid’s Ivy education.</p>
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<p>When it comes to student records HMSPY side with Federal law but when it comes to considering an 18 year student as adult they don’t look at Federal policy. They considered it as dependent on parent and charge them responsible for the bills.</p>
<p>HMSPY can’t have it both ways.</p>
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<p>Under federal law you can’t discriminate based on anything and as a business you can’t sell the same product to different people at different prices.</p>
<p>But HMSPY is able to do that without any problem. They not only discriminate against students whom they think belong to certain family who can pay and so charge them a different price than other.</p>
<p>I still don’t think it is fair. If they really want to do good for the society then they can make the institutes tuition free.</p>
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<p>Discrimination against protected classes (race, gender are the big ones) are illegal. You can’t charge black students more than white students. </p>
<p>But price discrimination is perfectly legal. Auto dealerships are under no obligation to sell you the BMW for the same price as the last guy.</p>
<p>A good example is clothing. Clubs are allowed and frequently discriminate against customers who wear the wrong style of clothes by not allowing them admittance into the club.</p>
<p>I do not see the logic of looking at parental income to calculate an 18 year old’s financial needs. We have all come to accept this practice, but I think it is inconsistent with the idea that an individual becomes an adult at 18.</p>
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<p>Airlines do it every day.</p>
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<p>Agreed. It is based on the assumption that parents are willing to spend money on their students education. </p>
<p>It eliminates many colleges where the student is interested but the parent is able and unwilling.</p>
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<p>No they don’t. No one is required to pay Harvard’s tuition, it’s a choice whether you send your son or daughter there. They also don’t care whose paying for it. For instance, maybe a grandparent is footing the bill, Harvard wouldn’t care one way or the other.</p>
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<p>You most certainly can, you just can’t discriminate based on something that is protected.</p>
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<p>Of course you can.</p>
<p>No, HMSPY aren’t playing it both ways.</p>
<p>HMSPY are asking those admitted students to pay a certain amount in tuition. It is up to the student to come up with that money.</p>
<p>Students can ask their parents. Their parents can say no. Then the student can try to find other ways to pay.</p>
<p>If a student is asking HMSPY to provide some help, then these schools are putting conditions on those who receive assistance. They are asking those students to provide information about their family background and providing help based on family income. It is a form of charitable giving. </p>
<p>When a big corporation goes out and sponsors various activities in the community, the big corporation gets to make that choice. Does it want to help fund an art exhibit or a wing at a hospital? </p>
<p>HMSPY get to make the same kinds of decisions on what they do with their money.</p>
<p>The student, as an adult, can ask their parents to provide that information and ask their parents to pay what HMSPY thinks they can pay. The parents can then say no. The student then has to look elsewhere, as any adult would have to do.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it is up to the student to pay for their college education. Some students can ask their parents to help them out, and these parents are generous enough to be willing to help their kids out.</p>
<p>Don’t put the so-called inconsistency on the schools here.</p>
<p>The expectation that parents ought to pay for college is relatively new in our society. It was not a common expectation in the 50’s and 60’s.</p>
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<p>Sure they can.</p>
<p>And again, you haven’t answered the question. How is HYPSM (isn’t it normally HYPSM? Why did M fall into second place – oh, never mind, I figured it out) “supposed” to charge children of wealthy families who can afford to pay full freight? It’s not Harvard’s problem that some parents of means don’t want to pay that kind of money for education. It sucks, and it’s unfair, but there’s no way around it that doesn’t open up the door for every family of means to claim that they don’t want to pay the price.</p>
<p>Anyway, who are you kidding, POIH? You’re delighted to pay MIT, even at full sticker. It validates everything you have worked for and everything your daughter has worked for. It feels entitled to think that you deserve aid on top, in your income bracket.</p>
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<p>Sure you can. How do you think airplane tickets and hotel rooms are sold? You are likely not paying the same rate as the person in the seat next to you or the hotel room next door.</p>
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<p>This statement irks me, it’s basically the idea that if you are wealthy (and can afford an Ivy League education) then you are moral, and if you are not wealthy (and cannot afford an Ivy League education, thus needing financial aid), then you are immoral. In other words, your wealth comes from leading a moral and responsible lifestyle, and thus you ‘deserve’ that Ivy League education while those who don’t have wealth must have lead an immoral and irresponsible lifestyle and that they don’t deserve that kind of education.</p>
<p>I know you probably don’t mean that (or mean it a little), but it comes across that way. </p>
<p>But it’s really possible to lead a moral, responsible lifestyle and still need considerable amounts of aid.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are cheaters out there, as there always are. And these cheaters come from all social classes. While I have no hard data on this, I would think that the overwhelming majority of families needing aid have lead responsible lifestyles.</p>
<p>Devils advocate - Every kid who graduates from HYP is entering the world on totally equal footing. This wipes out their financial history. So is it right that some graduate debt free while others have to take out loans? Shouldn’t the colleges then take all the money in the pot and divide it equally among the students?</p>
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<p>In no small part that was because tuition was $50 or $100 per year back in the 50’s.</p>
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<p>Because the non-prosperous kids are already at a life disadvantage. The prosperous kids (whose parents don’t want to fund HYPSM but will fund state U) aren’t at a life disadvantage. And because there is no way to set it up which won’t make all the prosperous kids start claiming that their families “don’t value” elite educations. If you have a better test on how to distinguish the rich kid whose parent really won’t pay for an elite education from the rich kid whose parent is now going to pretend he won’t pay for an elite education, I’m all ears.</p>
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<p>Why should graduating from HYP - or any college - wipe out a student’s financial history? No matter what, if a student comes from an affluent home, that student is likely to have a safety net, whereas other students won’t. Each student still had a different socioeconomic upbringing, and so on and so forth. A student who graduates with debt more often than not CHOOSES to graduate with debt. Most students of HYP caliber can either pay for other schools out of pocket or receive large merit scholarships. The students who can’t afford HYP out of pocket and choose to take out loans do exactly that - choose to take out loans.</p>
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<p>How would this solve the problem? If colleges did this, upper income students would still come out debt free and lower-income students would be shut out of the colleges all together. Much of the middle class would still get the raw end of the deal.</p>