Who pays for financial aid?

Parents Forum
61

The poor kids don’t have freedom of choice either. A lucky few will get generous FA. None of them can afford to attend a huge swath of midrange colleges that don’t meet full need.

Where does it say that everybody has to have an equal chance at everything?

Those poor kids aren’t getting their teeth straightened. They don’t have cars. They can’t attend interesting summer programs because they have to work.

Really, what you want is what communist and socialist countries offer, except I think you only want extreme top schools. Sorry, I have no sympathy. Other posters have pointed out many programs already in place that work the way you want, but you seem to want us all to agree how unfair you think your lot in life is.

62

Well, the rich do have the choice for a public education which is subsidized. For k-12, the child of a wealthy parent can go to public school for free. Books provided, uniforms provided for sports teams, a library full of books, even a ride to school in the big yellow limo and a subsidized lunch program. For college, Bill Gates’ kids can go to the University of Washington for the same price as any other resident. If merit aid is available, Little Bill can apply and be awarded the same scholarships as other kids who don’t have two cents to rub together. Warren Buffet’s kids could be Cornhuskers for a very low rate. They could even take the Stafford loans, but I’m pretty sure they’d be unsubsidized. Jeb Bush’s kids could have qualified for Bright Futures and if they went to a private college in Florida would have been entitled to the Resident Grant to offset the higher tuition. Rich or poor, the tuition at public schools is the same for all residents.

Athletic scholarships often go to players who don’t need them (Snoop Dog, John Elway’s kids,). Many NMF are wealthy and can pay for school, but if they want to take a scholarship to KY or Oklahoma it’s available.

You may not like the way it works, but that’s how it is. You are free to start your own college and make the rules.

63

@alooknac I know it’s much harder to find sympathy for ones who look more prosperous or happy or pretty but real sympathy doesn’t discriminate and nobody knows what others go through unless you have walked in their shoes.

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@romanigypsyeyes

Many of those other countries with free tuition have more selective admissions. Here, almost anyone can get admitted to some college. Other countries might keep costs low by forcing faculty to spend more time on teaching and less on research.

65

Framing education as strictly a monetary value proposition is a pernicious trend that debases depth, passion, and exploration, not to mention many fields of study that have value far beyond their financial ROI.

A world without poetry is not a world I want to live in.

66

True, but some people find it difficult to equate “first world” problems with real problems.

67

@sherpa Everybody’s world is their real world. Just because you and I don’t have as much money as ones who don’t need to worry about menial things like college tuition, on top of which they can donate a few million to colleges of their choice, doesn’t mean we are morally superior or have an inherent right to get things for free or to recieve benefits.

68

It’s the words, folks. I think OP confused all this in how she put it. Or maybe how she did or didn’t think it. Dunno.

Nothing wrong with the idea some kids could underwrite the costs of their educations through post grad service jobs of some sort. The military academies do it. Some program finances a part of med school in return for x time in a needy area. Someone mentioned loan reduction or forgiveness via nursing or teaching. I could see something similar with public service or the public sector for others. The point isn’t, but omg, the low salary or indentured setvitide, but a way to “pay back.”

The problem may be finding enough of those jobs.

Like WPA, you could still be a poet, sociologist, photographer, computer person, whatever,
working a post for x years, ideally related to your skills, rather than the other frustrations some kids do encounter today. Rather than struggling with loan payments and no job or a free market min wage job, or having parents go into hock.

And we know the govt has other spending priorities than a poets bridgade.

Anyway…

69

Even assuming the US govt is amenable to doing the above, the costs of creating the bureaucratic infrastructure to implement all that is likely to be such that it’d be a financial wash at the very best…and a net loss to the govt.

The last time the US govt did something remotely on that scale was during the Great Depression with various New Deal public works projects to reduce the exceedingly severe levels of unemployment and getting the US infrastructure that we have been enjoying for the last several decades built.

However, it came at such a high cost and with a high degree of political opposition on the basis of fiscal concerns AND arguments against government overreach…including accusations it infringed on individual liberties/freedoms.

70

Sometimes I wonder if newbies just want to yank our chains.

71

"What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’. David Hume

72

Commit suicide bc they couldn’t attend Cornell and faced being forced to attend a lowly affordable school?

If death is preferable to affordable options, how are they going to feel at graduation when their indentured selves are going to be told where they have to work and for how long? Or are there equally supposed to be posh elite govt jobs waiting for them at the other end?

I find the irony in the proposal rather humorous.

73

@SugarlessCandy these are your options:

  1. Be full pay at a tippy top ( or top) school. You can pay based on savings, current earnings, and borrowing if you choose to. If you will have two in college at the same time you may qualify for FA at schools that meet full need. There are top students who get rejected from these schools all the time, there are top students who get in and whose parents can afford to pay, and there are top students who get in but can't afford to go. It is what it is - some have a harder time accepting this than others for many reasons.
  2. Do your research and apply to schools that give merit. There are outstanding schools out there who would love to have your daughter and would give her money to attend. Go find them. We can help.
  3. Attend your state school's honors program.

The process is pretty straight forward once we take the emotion out of it. For the record one of my kids stayed instate and now attends an excellent, but expensive, graduate program. My other D attends a top 5 (?) out of state flagship. She had the stats and other stuff to apply to an Ivy- she chose not to and who knows if she would have even gotten in. I have no idea ( I predict not) and it doesn’t matter- she is happy. She also received a lot of merit at some excellent schools. Our family had the money talk. They knew what was in their accounts and what we continue right now to put into their accounts.

There is no option for top kids to go to top schools and then pay it back by working for the government, if that is what you are suggesting… I am not quite sure. Maybe there are such programs if you teach in underserved areas etc? It is important for you to understand that your daughter will be fine if she applies wisely.

74

I get it. It’s upsetting when a kid’s parents won’t pay, or made bad financial choices (meaning truely prioritizing other things like boats, ski chalets, etc.) and they have no say in it, no choice about it and are stuck with their parents’ income even though they have no access to it. And it’s NOT fair. You can spin privilege any way you want, when a rich kid is thrust into a poor person’s shoes without the access to any social supports, that is not fair. And, yes, the class warfare ($100k is rich) stuff gets old…

But it is impossible to police this. How will anyone judge if it’s real or a scam? And if it’s real, what message does that send? To me it says don’t bother saving.

If you start with the theory that all 18 year olds should be judged for FA on their own income/assets, there simply isn’t enough $ to pay for it all. And if you go solely on merit, then only about the top 2% of kids will get $ before it runs out.

Very few poor kids go to college scot free. Yes, we see questions about someone who got a free FA ride at Cornell, but “will I get $ to buy winter clothes”, or “will I get FA for a semester abroad”? types of things, and yes, it does grate on you bc it seems like they got a HUGE gift and they want more. But the reality is actually the kid who gets an awesome package to NYU, stellar by NYU standards, but can’t go bc he is $11k short each year and literally has no way to pay. So he has to hope for admission to a meets full need school that will only require him to borrow his max loan, or commute to a CUNY school (and still borrow his max loan). This struggle is more typical.

More typical still is the mid range student who can’t be admitted to meets full need. They may struggle to support themselves while attending on loans, periodically having to drop out, and then the loans kick in.

Very few full FA packages come without loans AT ALL. I do agree that every kid who gets a free FA ride should at least take the minimum loans. But I also think it should be a different method. The college could give the loan (which would not kick in until graduation and never kkcks in if you don’t graduate or transfer), and you pay it back to them only upon getting a job. Better safety net.

Trust me: don’t worry about what others get. You’ll be better off. I’m just glad my kids have choices. Money buys choices. I had zero choices, and this is the best money I’ve ever spent to give them choices.

75

Not having millions of dollars at your disposal doesn’t make you poor, so don’t be so sure you’re going to qualify for “free” anything. Nobody’s claiming low income people feel “morally superior” to full pay families but you. It’s too bad if you feel that way, but it’s not reality. Low income people do have a basic right to receive certain benefits because we, as a society, have determined it’s beneficial to us to provide them.

I don’t believe you’re low income. If you were, you wouldn’t be complaining about the aid low income families get. If you are low income and are morally opposed to the benefits you’re offered, just refuse to take them. Resenting the few low income families who get enough grants to attend residential college won’t help you. If you want to qualify for all the free money you think they get, quit your job and donate your assets. All you’ll be guaranteed to get is a ~$5k/year Pell grant. That won’t cover the cost of most community colleges.

Railing against a system that doesn’t provide free education to the elite schools you want won’t help your daughter. Is she applying this fall? You’re wasting time here. You really need to start a new thread with her stats and your budget so posters can help you find affordable options. If your income is too high for need based aid but you can’t afford full pay, you need to target merit schools. If that means you need to let go of the Ivies, then mourn them and move on.

76

@SugarlessCandy A program that might fit your personal desires: SMART https://smart.asee.org

77

I sat on the scholarship committee for a small foundation and you’d be moved to tears by some of the letters we’d get from social workers and pastors and guidance counselors about the kids they were recommending. We’re not talking about a kid getting a free ride and worrying that it doesn’t include a semester abroad- we’re talking about a kid working an almost full time job, plus honors student in HS, and every cent of the job goes to pay the heating bill and to help with the rent. These are kids whose churches run bake sales to raise the $100 for a Greyhound bus ticket to get the kid to college (which the kid has never visited) and another $20 to buy a down jacket at Goodwill once he gets to the snowy location. And what do the kids worry about when they get to college? Not that their financial aid doesn’t cover beer money- but that since they don’t get their first Work Study paycheck until the last week of September, they need $50 to send home so the little brother gets sneakers, a spiral notebook, and breakfast every day once school starts.

People who think the poor have it easy when it comes to college don’t know any actual poor people. Or have never sat through AP Calculus and AP Physics for an entire year with eyeglasses taped together with masking tape, in a prescription which no longer fits. And an impacted wisdom tooth which they can’t afford to have extracted until their entire mouth becomes infected at which point they can get it treated.

There are actually kids out there who get “free rides” who need to scrape together what seem to be trivial sums of money to actually get the ride. Seems crazy to give up a four year university for a CC until you’re the kid who is asking your pastor for cross country bus fare.

78

“I do agree that every kid who gets a free FA ride should at least take the minimum loans.”

Why?

79

^fairness. It puts $ back in the pot. Later, if/when they are graduated and working, they give it back. But to the school, not the government. And the loan doesn’t begin ticking until graduation. And if you end up not graduating, it never triggers.

Under the current student loan program, I don’t think they should take loans. It could go very badly and ruin their lives.

I suspect these kids do try to give back to these schools after graduation. And they should.

80

My D isn’t the only one facing these choices and it’s too late for her to benefit from any changes. This is about discrimination against young adults by not considering them as independent of their parents and not even extending them a right to take independent loans. They aren’t rich brats asking for free money to buy fancy cars but intelligent middle class students looking for opportunities to be able to pay for equal academic opportunities extended to other peers. This is all I have to add to this discussion.