<p>Now that many schools such as Harvard, Duke, Emory, and even Rice have all done their share to reduce the cost for low-income students, will Vanderbilt ever step up?</p>
<p>vanderbilt has always been at the forefront of financial aid…it meets 100% of need.</p>
<p>you might be referring to the recent shakeup because of harvard’s pledge to help more HIGH income students with financial aid.</p>
<p>Is this a joke? 60% of undergrads are on financial aid – Vanderbilt is one of the few schools that is completely need blind.</p>
<p>As TheOC89 states, Vanderbilt is well known for being extremely generous with financial aid based on need. I wonder if some people don’t realize that because they give so few merit based full-ride scholarships. Even so, they are generous with merit based partial scholarships from what I read on this board from time to time.</p>
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<p>No they havent. Princeton university and Davidson became the first to eliminate loans from financial aid packages–now * this * is what i call forefront of financial aid. Also, im not refering to just Harvard; in my example, i also said emory, which caps the amount of loans to 15,000 (for the four years of attendance) if your income is between 50,000-100,000; and if your income is below 50,000, they meet your need with grants and no loans.</p>
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<p>Um. Ok. How is that helping more minorities come to the school? Wake forest and USC claim to be need blind and meet 100% of financial need, but do they have good financial aid packages? No.</p>
<p>What Vanderbilt needs to do is either eliminate loans from financial aid packages for low-income students like Harvard, Emory, Duke, and Rice, or cap the loan amount like middlebury college; thats what im talking about.</p>
<p>The list of schools that were loan free going into this year:</p>
<p>Amherst
Princeton
Davidson</p>
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<li>Not being in the top 3 isn’t ‘bad’ or anything. Vandy still offers much better financial aid positioning than 99% of colleges out there.</li>
</ul>
<p>There is a growing pressure to eliminate loans, and Vandy may do that soon. However, this isn’t ‘expected’ and nor should it be.</p>
<p>It should be expected, in my opinion. Rich private schools have the money for it.</p>
<p>No, it really shouldn’t.</p>
<p>Public schools, ‘bargains’, don’t offer 100% fin. aid(at least I don’t know any that do, UVa maybe). So, in actuality Private schools are frequently cheaper options. Trying to place limits upon loans, so that debt doesn’t grow to ridiculous amounts is a good plan. And under a certain point(although I would put it under the Harvard 60,000 mark) there should be a no part expected number, without loans.</p>
<p>However, Vandy isn’t Harvard, no 30+ billion dollar endowment.</p>
<p>Schools should try to lower costs, as those costs have very much outpaced inflation. However, loan-free isn’t neccesarily the option. Rice stands out in this regard, as they have a total cost nearly 10,000 less than most comparable schools.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt should continously try to improve it’s aid, but if they lowered loan caps, and offered aid to more people, it would be better than being loan-free, but also making it harder to qualify for aid IMO.</p>
<p>Vandy should be trying to do it’s best, but loan-free doesn’t mean best.</p>
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Yes, they really should. Uva isn’t the only public school offering good financial aid offers to poor students. </p>
<p>Perhaps you should look at the following:</p>
<p>Michigan state university: [Spartan</a> Advantage Program | Office of Financial Aid | Michigan State University](<a href=“http://finaid.msu.edu/spad.asp]Spartan”>http://finaid.msu.edu/spad.asp) Offers loan-free options for individuals with income 150% above the povery line.</p>
<p>Arizona state: [ASU</a> Advantage - Student Financial Assistance Office](<a href=“http://www.asu.edu/fa/advantage/]ASU”>http://www.asu.edu/fa/advantage/) covers all expenses with a no-loan option for arizona residents</p>
<p>UNC chapel Hill: offers the same financial aid option as UVA, regardless of state residency: [Carolina</a> Covenant](<a href=“http://www.unc.edu/carolinacovenant/]Carolina”>http://www.unc.edu/carolinacovenant/)</p>
<p>University of Illinois- Urbana: [University</a> of Illinois Financial Aid: Types of Aid](<a href=“http://www.osfa.uiuc.edu/aid/promise.html]University”>http://www.osfa.uiuc.edu/aid/promise.html) another no-loan option for Illinois residents.</p>
<p>University of Maryland- College Park: [Interpretations</a>, TERP Magazine Winter 2005](<a href=“http://www.terp.umd.edu/2.2/interpretations/]Interpretations”>http://www.terp.umd.edu/2.2/interpretations/) No-loan for low income maryland residents.</p>
<p>I just debunked your whole theory. None of these schools have Harvard’s endowment.</p>
<p>In fact, these schools have a smaller endowment than Vanderbilt, yet they can still offer the no-loan option. Why cant Vanderbilt?</p>
<p>I can go on and on with the public schools that offer this option. So again, i would like to ask, when will Vanderbilt step up?</p>
<p>donjuan, my parents do not make alot of money and I don’t pay a dime of tuition. My girlfriend who also comes from a modest family, also doesn’t pay anything either. In fact, nearly everyone I talked to raves about Vanderbilt’s generous financial aid packages. If you are applying to Vanderbilt and can’t afford it, Vanderbilt will give you a good package. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>There is an assumption being made that all aid packages from Vanderbilt have a loan portion. Do you know that to be a fact? Perhaps their aid packages for lower income applicants are already loan-free but they have no “official” program that all packages for incomes lower than $xx will be loan-free. Why not apply and see what they offer compared to your other offers before jumping to conclusions?</p>