<p>"The College Boards latest efforts to encourage talented low-income students to apply to top colleges, while laudable in intent, will indeed create tensions surrounding financial aid at most institutions. Without more financial aid, getting more low-income students to apply to top colleges will just result in more rejections." ...</p>
<p>Opinion piece.</p>
<p>About two-thirds of America’s top 150 private colleges and universities with the highest endowments per student are not need-blind in admissions, and already reject talented low-income applicants because of students’ financial need. And many of the need-blind schools are already spending as much as is sustainable from their endowments.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. Is that true? 2/3 of top privates are not need-blind?</p>
<p>well in a way, absolutely, but not in the way that you might think.</p>
<p>Many top colleges give plus factors to low income students for overcoming hardships and adversity (holistic review). For example, every UC, which is officially need-blind, gives bonus points in admissions for low income students. Williams College, which claims to be need-blind does the same. Thus, even if they claim to be need-blind, they obviously cannot be.</p>
<p>But putting that aside, there are only ~30 colleges/Unis that are both need-blind and meet full need. So any college that wants to attract more low income students will need a larger finaid budget.</p>
<p>It’s called “need-aware” or “need-sensitive”. “At these schools, most students are admitted without their financial aid need being a factor (i.e., “need-blind”), but a small percentage (1%–5%), generally students wait-listed or with borderline qualifications, are reviewed in modest consideration of the college’s projected financial resources.”</p>
<p>So yes, they do look at need and factor in the amount of FA they have available. If these schools experienced an increase in low SES students applicants, they would not be able to support it. In fact that “small percentage” may have to increase as more low SES students applied.</p>
<p>So, unless I misunderstand, Catherine Hill is suggesting that the federal government should provide private schools with additional financial aid funds earmarked for the lowest-income students?</p>
<p>Sorry, but I disagree. If Vassar alums want Vassar to enroll more low income students, then they have to pony up the bucks to make it possible. This is an institutional issue, not a government issue. It is not my responsibility as a taxpayer to make Vassar (or Duke, or Princeton, etc.) look like a more generous, caring institution.</p>
<p>I see only three options:</p>
<p>(1) an increase in institutional funding for financial aid;
(2) an across-the-board increase in government funding for financial aid; or
(3) a shift in the allocation of federal financial aid funds from middle income students to low income students.</p>
<p>The only one of these that makes any sense is the first.</p>
<p>It is not my responsibility as a taxpayer to make Vassar (or Duke, or Princeton, etc.) look like a more generous, caring institution.</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>Very good point. And, Vassar and others could always “drop their prices” for those that they deem “low income” and charge a “sliding scale”. </p>
<p>The fed and state gov’ts should have little to no concern about whether certain income groups will get enough gov’t funding to attend various private colleges.</p>
<p>Few residential colleges, public or private, are cheap enough for a poor student to attend using just federal aid, including loans.</p>
<p>The maximum Pell grant is $5,645. The maximum federal loan for freshmen and sophomores is $5500 for freshmen, $6500 for sophomores, and $7500 for juniors and seniors. And that’s the end of financial aid from the federal government. Some states give additional money–NY, for example, has a grant called TAP, another $5000 for the poorest students.</p>
<p>There are SEOG grants which are also fed grants but they’re not guaranteed, so Pell Grants are not the end of the line for fed grants.</p>
<p>It really isn’t the gov’ts job to be providing aid for Room and Board. It is reasonable that there should be enough aid (grants and loans) given to cover basic costs to commute to the local public. If a state’s instate tuition is too high, then there should be state aid to supplement.</p>
<p>There are too many middle class students who can’t “go away” to college, so it’s not really justifiable that taxes from the middle class should pay for other’s R&B.</p>
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<p>How is that the taxpayers’ problem?</p>
<p>If those schools want an economically diverse student body, then they have to come up with the financial aid funds to make it possible. And, yes, it’s true that, unless a school’s alumni and other benefactors are exceedingly generous, those funds will likely never be enough for every deserving, low-income student to attend that school.</p>
<p>And, yes, as increasing numbers of low income students apply to those schools, the schools will have no choice but to shift from being need-blind to need-sensitive, and that’s unfortunate.</p>
<p>But, I repeat, how is that the taxpayers’ problem? If federal funds suffice for students to be able to attend at least one of their state public schools, that should be sufficient. And if the funds aren’t enough for attendance at a state school, then that’s the state’s problem, not the federal government’s.</p>
<p>Every time I see this title, I ask myself…“why is the Vassar President ON financial aid?”</p>
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<p>Well, if you believe in expanding the economy via upward mobility, funding college for students from poor families is one of the very best ways to do it. Unemployment for high school grads is 7.6 percent; it’s 3.5 percent for high school grads. Employed people pay taxes and aren’t a burden on taxpayers.</p>
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<p>You’re missing the point, oldmom. We already do fund college for students from poor families - that’s what Pell grants and student loans do!</p>
<p>What you’re saying is that state schools aren’t good enough, and what we need to do is fund private college education for students from poor families. And what I want to know is “why?” . . . and that’s a question you haven’t answered.</p>
<p>*Well, if you believe in expanding the economy via upward mobility, funding college for students from poor families is one of the very best ways to do it. *</p>
<p>That’s the point of providing Pell Grants, SEOG, Stafford loans, and Perkins loans so that low income students can go to their local publics.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that students are only successful in life if they “go away” to college.</p>
<p>A low income student who gets his eng’g degree, nursing degree, teaching credential, etc from their local public can be as successful as his/her colleagues who went to residential colleges.</p>
<p>I almost posted earlier today but didn’t get a chance. In my opinion private colleges can do whatever they want to attract lower income students, but they need to do that with their own dollars. Perhaps that what the Vasser op ed is about…encouraging privates to up the financial anty for needy students. Many of our states have defunded their state’s public universities to the point that tuition outstrips available funds without even considering room and board. If something needs to be done it needs to be done to prop up our public institutions…not the private ones. And frankly who cares what College Board thinks…</p>
<p>I read the article this morning. I was frankly pretty surprised. It is not the role of federal aid to assist colleges in providing access to low income students. If colleges want to be diverse … or if they “need” to be diverse … they need to figure out a way to do it, and be glad they are getting money from the federal government to do it. Not quite sure what makes an expensive school somehow more deserving of a greater share of the limited federal funds than any other school.</p>
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<p>Indeed. </p>
<p>So let’s do the opposite of what the Vassar prez suggests: eliminate all federal funding (loans/grants) to students at private colleges and re-assign those funds to students attending public colleges.</p>
<p>Win-win.</p>
<p>Lose-lose if public colleges become the ghetto for students from poor families.</p>
<p>Hold on a sec, oldmom, I’m confused. I thought you wanted all students from poor families to be able to go to college. But they shouldn’t have to go to public colleges? Or are public colleges okay so long as at least some of the students drive sports cars and wear designer clothes?</p>
<p>I apologize - I’m clearly not current on the latest trends in social engineering . . . :(</p>
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<p>I don’t think it serves the public good, not for public or for private (non-profit, tax-exempt) colleges. </p>
<p>Do you think it’s wise that no students from poor families could attend private universities unless the universities had the endowment to support their attendance completely? I don’t think that’s good for full-pay or merit-awarded (part-pay) students, and it’s certainly not good for poor students who have no chance whatsoever of raising the gap between what most private colleges can afford to give and the cost of attendance.</p>
<p>I believe in diversity. It’s good for everyone.</p>
<p>I most certainly do not see an issue with federal aid being used in private schools - why shouldn’t a student who receives federal aid be able to use it wherever he/she wants to use it? I just don’t believe that because a school costs more, it should receive more aid dollars per student. I definitely think it’s great for schools to have a diverse student body, but they do bear some responsibility for figuring out how to attain that diversity … expecting a bigger share of the pie because they charge more isn’t a reasonable way to do that.</p>