<p>Not to pick on Knox, but they are a classic example. Tuition at Knox is $36,000. Tuition at Harvard is $37,000. Both are ridiculous, but to suggest Knox and Harvard are of equal value is absurd. With all private entities charging basically the same it’s driven hoards to apply to the “best” schools, costs being equal. There’s no longer any price differentiation among products. </p>
<p>M</p>
<p>I know a very wealthy family with a daughter who is finishing her freshman year right now. She was a average (2.8-3.0) student. Her mother told me she was shocked by the offers the kid received to OOS schools. Lots of offers of in state tuition plus scholarships and honors! These were for regional schools in mid-west states (mayville, bemidji, etc.) the kid is at some small state school in Michigan now. The girl herself self " imagine what could have happened if I’d tried". It is obvious that some schools really need kids to come just to put butts in seats.</p>
<p>Side note: I do think that the girl I was referring to wishes that the had applied herself more and could attend a more prestigious school. She has gone to some MICH football and hockey games and always posts on FB about how great they are.</p>
<p>^^ she also has the opportunity to apply herself and earn a transfer and awards to a “better” school.</p>
<p>Just a cautionary note not to take everything you see at face value. A number of the smaller MN stats schools don’t charge anyone OOS tuition. Bemidji is one. Are they desperate for studentsa? I don’t know. A coworker had a job there in the past. She does talk about how difficult employee recruitment could be when candidates arrived and found it snowing in May. . . .</p>
<p>More about that family: that girls family did not become so wealthy by being stupid. I am sure they pointed their child in the direction of small state schools because they recognized that that is where she would fit best. To hear that a lot of those schools don’t charge OOS tuition doesn’t surprise me, I would assume that her dad probably knew that and looked at it as a perk. Her father is a surgeon and he knows full well the work school entails ( just as he knows his own kid). But, hand to heart, this girls mother said she received offers for honors colleges, stipends, and $.</p>
<p>Well, it was a while ago, but I’m sorry about the community college post. I wasn’t trying to dis on it by any means, especially since my parents couldn’t even handle that. My point being that I’m obviously not sure about CC’s outside of my area, I am just a kid after all, but I don’t know of many people doing amazingly well. I understand chasing after big dreams like instead of just wanting to be a doctor, wanting to be surgeon general one day, or instead of being a lawyer, wanting to be a supreme court justice. But at the same time, the people who accomplish that do dream big, and If those were my goals, I would be I believe fairly hesitant to commute to my local CC (with like a 12% graduation rate). </p>
<p>I know many successful people have attended community colleges, but the percentage of students attending most community colleges who become super successful is probably very very small, especially when compared to these top level institutions. Not to mention, I don’t believe most of the classes from out CC including the gen ed courses even transfer to our instate school, or so I’ve been told. Many kids in my school have taken classes their in substitute for a lack of AP classes including myself, and I’m pretty sure many have told me that they had problems getting classes to transfer right when they went to University of Oklahoma.</p>
<p>The reason why I had a problem with it is why do my friends have to make that decision when I don’t have to? I’ve gotten so much in scholarships I do feel guilty, because there’s way more than I could even use, because I thought this stuff was a lot harder to get, so I applied a lot. I wish that I, as the winning applicant, now could give the money to someone else I care about who I know is having a really hard time paying for college. After all, I did the work, and now I don’t see any return, when I could give even a fraction of it to a friend I care about, I would still feel rewarded. I really wish I could :(</p>
<p>But I can’t, and I understand why. But why was it so easy for me? I hate so many things about the college admit/FA system! I’ve got a lot of free money, I was accepted to all but 2 of the 20 schools I applied to, most of which were some of the best in the country (ivies, the little ivies, other top lac’s, other just great schools like duke and washu) which according to the infamous chance threads shouldn’t have happened, so now i’m thinking why was I? Was it because of my good merits? yes I have a 33 and a good GPA, but does that warrant that many acceptances? It’s hard for me to buy that. kids don’t normally get 9 likely letters/early writes and so many free trips to universities. It’s really hard for me to buy that my merits got me this. Why do I believe i got so much good fortune? because I’m a URM, first get, poor female student from a drastically underrepresented geographic region. </p>
<p>I feel similar about the FA, why did I get so much?!? Did I deserve it? or was it a pity party? It makes me feel terrible! Why does a girl I know who piddled around in high school, get an average GPA (in my opinion I guess, it sounds good on paper (3.7 something I think) but you can sleep through my school and pull a 4.0 easy, as 5 kids in my class of 59 did this year including myself and one of my friends I’m talking about) and a 21 get to go to OU for free, when another kid with a 4.0 and 30 ACT score has to pay 20,000k? </p>
<p>Most merit scholarships are school exclusive, so unless the school you’ve considered (a don’t expect a kid from backwoods oklahoma to know about some odd alternative in like florida somewhere that does offer it when we have a virtually nonexistant guidance counselor!) your screwed. </p>
<p>and how were our parents suppose to expect this? they didn’t go to ivy league schools? mine didn’t even go to college. WE had to educate THEM about the college process, and I’m not mad at them for it. The internet is a jumbled mess and there isn’t local assistance so what was i supposed to expect them to know? neither mine or my friends parents ever sent a kid to any place other than community college, because that’s what our siblings wanted to do. I don’t look down upon it. It’s just not the path either of us want to pursue if we can avoid it. </p>
<p>I really should probably stop posting, every time i do I get upset again and end up rambling about it :/</p>
<p>Tipa891,
Best wishes to you with your college career! You have made comments on things that are obvious to those of us who are immersed in this process.
The Financial Aid system is messed up. It punishes people who have worked hard to achieve higher incomes, it punishes people who have been responsible and have scrimped and saved.
Same two households earning (you pick an aid eligible amount) one household has no money in savings, none in checking, no equity in their home, has highly financed nice cars, takes lavish vacations etc.
The other household drives beater cars, purchased a home considerably below their means and has paid it off, either no or very modest vacations, have amassed a considerable college fund for their child or children etc… Which family has the considerably lower tuition bill?
We all know the answer. This is seriously messed up!</p>
<p>^ and the funny thing is, is that since both of the families in this example bring in the same income and the one on bottom will likely have to pay a pretty penny more. Very sad :/</p>
<p>To be entirely honest, it does help to be poor, sometimes. I go to a private school and my family makes enough to barely keep us above the poverty line. I get enough financial aid that I’m getting a $200,000 education for $35,000 in debt. My student work award goes into my pocket so I can afford books and other out of pocket school expenses. I one hundred percent appreciate this and I work very hard because I feel that I owe it to the school because most of my money comes from them. I appreciate every experience I have here but I can definitely understand how some kids, who are upper middle class have a harder time. Their parents make way more then mine but maybe have more expenses so the kids end up with way more debt. I’ve always thought the kids in the middle have it toughest when it comes to paying for college.</p>
<p>
Easy answer: don’t work hard. Don’t scrimp and save. In fact, go on welfare and let the rest of us pay for you. </p>
<p>Good luck with that.</p>
<p>@omedog</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that girl is getting much aid at a Michigan public. I sure as hell know I’m not getting any anytime soon, and I had much higher stats (3.6+ 29 ACT).</p>
<p>Tipa, once again, let go of the guilt and go and do well in school. </p>
<p>There are ‘reasons’ for these things, but they aren’t your fault and they aren’t your responsibility. If you are in a good position, now, pay it forward, later. That is the best way to deal with these kinds of things.</p>
<p>^ ugh! I know your right poetgrl, I’ll try harder. It’s just difficult to put out of my mind :/</p>
<p>Read a good book. Go to the gym. Write yourself a promise that one day you will fund a scholarship for middle class kids who fit the description of your friend, or even a scholarship for impoverished kids. Then, be happy for yourself. In the end, most of us manage to work it out.</p>
<p>
College Confidential has a good overview of this issue:
[Financial</a> Aid - Is Saving Penalized? - financial-aid - College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/financial_aid/ants.htm]Financial”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/financial_aid/ants.htm)
This article looks at it from a neutral, not emotional perspective.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most of the time, both families will have the EXACT same tuition bill. Because income is OVERWHELMINGLY the primary factor in determining aid using either FAFSA or Profile methodology. </p>
<p>At a handful of schools which meet need, the spendthrift family that has no savings will get more aid. That handful of schools are also the most difficult admits. So yes, the scrimping and saving family might have to pay more at Stanford or Yale. </p>
<p>But the vast majority of schools don’t meet need. Saver Family Kid and Spendthrift Family Kid are both admitted to, say, NYU, and are told that COA is going to be $60k+ per year. Or both kids live in California and are admitted to UCLA, with a COA of aroudn $30k. The family that saved finds it’s able to manage to pay. The family that blew all the money can’t.</p>
<p>I feel the burn of the savings penalty - it is particularly bad if you have lots of kids spread out in age. I have 3 kids, 3 years between each. That means I will have at least one kid in college for 10 consecutive years. If you do the math, that means colleges expect me to devote more than half my savings to college expenses over that time period.</p>
<p>That said, I wouldn’t do it any differently. In fact I would have saved more if I had known how much college costs would increase. </p>
<p>Is it “fair”? Maybe not, but I bet most of the “no savings” families would swap places with me if they could, regardless of the effect on financial aid.</p>
<p>The argument that families who save have to pay more is somewhat false. Using your example of two families with identical incomes, different houses and different savings: FAFSA doesn’t even take into consideration your primary residence so your house doesn’t count. The biggest contributor to FAFSA EFC is income, so in your case that would be identical. For middle aged married parents around 50K of assets are protected. Assets over the protected amount are assessed at 5.6%. So if you’d managed to save 100K, $2,800 would be added to your EFC. Yes, that’s a difference, but it’s not astronomical. </p>
<p>Then comes the fact that FAFSA only schools generally don’t meet need anyway. So regardless of efc you may be full pay. That’s where the family that saved and lived below their means may have enough money between savings, current income and borrowing to be able to send you to that 4 year, sleep away, dream college. The other kid whose parents didn’t save is out of luck and complains that financial aid is unfair to his income group. </p>
<p>What about schools that meet need? Those are very hard to get into. So now your two identical income families also have to have similar over achieving, high stat, desirable kids with hooks to even get accepted to these schools. Meet need schools will use the CSS profile to delve even deeper into the financial picture and the savings will family will take a hit here. These schools are generally expensive, but generous with financial aid. Yes, your savings family may be asked to pay more, but the reality of the example is that the non-saving family won’t be able to come up with their efc. Their kid won’t be going, while the savings family may be stretched by what the school wants, but at least they have some savings to do this. </p>
<p>No one really know other people’s complete situations. So when you say friend A got a better deal than friend B, you don’t know their total financial situation, you don’t know all their stats, and you probably don’t know the details of their award letter. Lots of kids on CC act like loans are gifts. So if one kid says she is only paying 10k to go to school and another says it’s 20k, half the time the first one is not counting loans. They also confuse merit aid and financial aid. </p>
<p>A while ago our local paper had a picture of a HS senior signing her letter of intent to play basketball at Yale. The headline read so and so gets a scholarship to play basketball at Yale. All CCers know Yale doesn’t have athletic scholarships. She may be getting financial aid, she may be full pay but she definitely didn’t get a full ride athletic scholarship to play basketball for Yale, as I heard a lot of kids and parents tell.</p>
<p>The same goes with the idea that poor kids get their way paid. A 0 efc kid gets a $5550 pell grant and usually a gap at every school that costs more than $5550. In addition to the Pell he can take out the same $5500 direct loans as everyone else. Most poor kids live at home, commute to a cheap community college or go to school part time while working. If a poor kid has outstanding stats and hooks and gets admitted to a top meets need school, then yes she can get her way paid. But a middle class kid will get good aid at those schools too and if the middle class kid’s parents didn’t save that kid has the stats to get large merit based awards at many desirable schools. He has lots more options than the poor kid.</p>
<p>But why does the responsible family have to pay any more than the irresponsible one? and sometimes it amounts to quite a bit more than $2,800 a year. I know a kids calculated EFC was around $20,000, but once these assets in savings, property upkeep (a lot of people do small scale farming and ranching out here as supplemental income), and other assets (none of which are that fancy, old cars etc…) their EFC somehow came out to be around $32,000. That’s a really big difference.</p>
<p>And I disagree about options for poor kids. One, if those poor kids have similar stats, then they qualify for the same merit scholarships. Plus, they qualify for the countless other need based scholarships that are available. </p>
<p>For kicks (not practicality because I know that these don’t always walk hand in hand), you can factor in how many low income students are first generation college students, which opens up even more scholarship opportunities. Also, there are a higher percentage of minority students America’s low income population that higher, providing further more scholarship opportunities. </p>
<p>Yes the majority of the schools don’t meet need based aid. But there are plenty that do, and if your poor and work hard enough to get in, you get college paid for. If your middle class and work just as hard (and sometimes harder because of the fewer hooks in general that come with each higher tax bracket) you get in, but still can’t go. Here’s how I see it</p>
<p>Filthy Rich Kid: Can go anywhere because can afford it and some cases has a better chance of getting in (daddy went to yale legacy, expensive prep schools, other influence). Doesn’t have to work as hard and get to go wherever they please</p>
<p>Poor kid: has it harder than the Filthy Rich kid, home life probably isn’t best, but isn’t always terrible (especially if said kid lives in a region where 35k a year is plenty to support a family, but colleges don’t see that 
) Through enough extra work in securing some of the ample help that’s out there for this group/working hard enough to get into top need-based aid schools, they also get to go for free. It’s a challenge, but as long as the KID works hard, it’s doable</p>
<p>Middle Class kid: May live a better life than a poor kid, but depending on family size,taxes, saving for retirement, buying a home, etc… may not be doing too much better when you look at the kid (of course this varies widely be region and child, most of the time their life is probably better, but it’s not always the case). Works hard, but has limited opportunity for aid. In order to afford college, not only do they have to work hard enough to get accepted (with the fewer hooks that are in the middle class than the lower class), they also have to go above that and hope they can achieve an incredible competitive merit scholarship, which plenty of schools don’t offer, and there are limited purely merit scholarships available outside of colleges. If they Don’t secure a really high (like full ride) universal merit scholarship (which are incredibly rare and ridiculous to obtain) Ivy league and top privates are out, even if they were accepted. If they are even more unlucky, they won’t receive any merit aid from their state school, and that won’t even be an option. Sometimes, they will have to go to community college and STILL take out some in loans DESPITE working hard enough to get into HYP. </p>
<p>For that middle class kid, that is four years of hard work and dedication in high school thrown out the window when I can get into my local CC with a 2.5 and an 18 ACT score, instead of the 4.0 and 32 that many of these kids labored in order to achieve. There is nothing wrong with community college, but perhaps different priorities would have resulted if this reality was known ahead of time. Poor kid with similar stats also gets into HYP or other similarly high, high quality need based school and gets to go for free with gracious grants and need based scholarships. Rich kid can just pay.</p>