Why do some people object to merit-based aid?

<p>Does anyone know of data or statistics that show the extent to which colleges have lower admission standards for those paying full list price? Thanks.</p>

<p>I wouldn't expect to find much
In many cases it doesn't seem the legacies always have a foot in the door at the very selctive schools, unless perhaps they have something else to go with it.
BUt for your average student with $99,999 EFC- why would the school have a lower admission standard?
More likely the school if they don't give merit- and have applicants around the block, will expect an applicant with zero need to actually have more accomplishments than an applicant with zero EFC because after all the first applicant has had every advantage ;)</p>

<p>MickeyD:</p>

<p>In the 1990's it was the justice department which pushed for competition between colleges, so the 568 group could no longer share information and keep aid awards similar--so that a student could choose based on fit or different criteria. The current situation is, in part, because of the justice departments threatened sanctions with reguard to those schools, that we experienced greater competition between students.</p>

<p>Voss:</p>

<p>Actually, ask Carleton's and Smith's admissions office--they tend to be forthcoming about how their policies came to be. Brown, until a year or two ago was need-aware for the last 5-10% of their class. Not sure that they have published actual statistics, but you can look at individual schools which show the % of the student body that gets some type of aid versus those that pay full price. For instance, at Trinity....around 38% get some kind of aid, while 62% pay the total cost.</p>

<p>IB</p>

<p>I'm sure this has been posted somewhere else. This is from the NYT:</p>

<p>Panel Considers Revamping College Aid and Accrediting</p>

<p>By SAM DILLON
Published: April 12, 2006</p>

<p>Months after suggesting that standardized testing should be brought to colleges and universities, a higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining proposals to change sharply how the nation's colleges are accredited and how federal student aid is administered.</p>

<p>One proposal calls for scrapping the current system of accreditation, which has been done largely by private regional bodies, in favor of a National Accreditation Foundation that would be created by Congress and the president. Another proposal calls for streamlining the federal student aid system, replacing some 17 grant, loan and tax-credit programs with just one, or perhaps three, federal aid programs.</p>

<p>The commission, which includes corporate and academic officials, was set up last fall by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to examine college costs and accountability.</p>

<p>Sweeping proposals like the accreditation idea have seemed to turn the commission's deliberations into a tug-of-war between corporate executives and educators over how to solve problems in the nation's higher education system.</p>

<p>"The commission is sending out firebolts, one after another," said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, which represents 1,100 postsecondary institutions.</p>

<p>Charles Miller, a former chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents and a onetime money manager who is leading the commission, said he hoped to build consensus among the panel's 19 members as they work to issue a final report in August. But he expressed impatience with some academics who, he said, seemed resistant to change and oblivious that they could be overwhelmed by increasing costs and other challenges.</p>

<p>"Those who are squawking the loudest are those who have a private place to play and a lot of money, much of which comes from the federal government," Mr. Miller said. "What we hear from the academy is, 'We're the best in the world, give us more money and let us alone.' "</p>

<p>Mr. Miller backed away from the accreditation proposal in an interview, calling it "sort of a boundary idea" laid out in one of several issue papers he commissioned to encourage dialogue.</p>

<p>The commission's meetings have not been widely publicized. But as word has spread about its deliberations, many college presidents have begun following its moves. Daniel L. Anderson, president of Appalachian Bible College in Bradley, W. Va., said he found the proposal to replace the nation's private accreditation system with one established by Congress especially troubling.</p>

<p>"The federal government isn't set up to manage the grass-roots affairs of our country," Dr. Anderson said. "Why would the federal government intrude to impose more regulation on higher education?"</p>

<p>Secretary Spellings said through a spokesman that she had confidence in the commission's work.</p>

<p>"We have the finest system in the world, but it is right and righteous for us to ask questions," especially about the affordability, accountability and accessibility of higher education, she said. She has urged the commission to think big and to be provocative.</p>

<p>And the commission appears to be fulfilling that mission. In its public meetings, panelists from Wall Street and elsewhere in the business world have criticized academia as failing to meet the educational needs of working adults, stem a slide in the literacy of college graduates and rein in rising costs.</p>

<p>During a February meeting in San Diego, Trace Urdan, a senior research analyst for the investment banking firm Robert W. Baird & Company, said state colleges and universities "amount to state-run enterprises and suffer from all the inefficiency and poor decision-making of Soviet-style factories."</p>

<p>Charlene R. Nunley, president of Montgomery College in Maryland, introduced herself as a "president of a Soviet factory" and said Mr. Urdan had no evidence for such sweeping claims. "Your criticism is unduly harsh," Dr. Nunley added.</p>

<p>The proposals are laid out in the issue papers, which are available at <a href="http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

<p>The proposal to expand standardized testing into higher education provoked fervent debate and drew comparisons to President Bush's education law, No Child Left Behind. Kevin Sullivan, a spokesman for Secretary Spellings, said, "While the secretary won't prejudge the work of the commission, there is no intent to suggest standardized tests or N.C.L.B.-style accountability for higher ed."</p>

<p>Mr. Miller has said he does not support a mandated federal test but does favor public reports on how college students are learning as measured through testing.</p>

<p>"There's been this relentless shelling of higher education," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, who does not sit on the commission but has attended its meetings.</p>

<p>If included in the final report, several of the proposals "would fundamentally undercut the commission's credibility," he said. "These would include the dismantling of the current accreditation system, the demolition of the federal student aid program, and the demotion of higher education to the role of handmaiden to business needs."</p>

<p>Rick Stephens, a senior vice president at Boeing and a commission member, said the proposals Mr. Warren attacked were intended to be provocative but were not official commission positions. Still, Mr. Stephens said he sympathized with some of the proposals, including the idea of overhauling the college finance system.</p>

<p>"There are more than a dozen grant and loan programs out there, so isn't it time to agree on just one or two?" Mr. Stephens said. "So some might say we're considering blowing up the financial aid system, and well, those words might fit. We need to entertain some bold perspectives."</p>

<p>Another business leader on the commission, Nicholas Donofrio, an executive vice president at IBM, said he was not a strong supporter of proposals that would increase the government's regulatory role.</p>

<p>"But the government has some role to play because it funds the aid programs, so it has some hooks into them," Mr. Donofrio said. "We want these people in academia to get real about the problems and the issues." </p>

<p>IB</p>

<p>Well, that article was a thread killer, huh?!</p>

<p>IsleBoy: Sorry, tax returns got in the way.</p>

<p>emeraldkity4 wrote: "But for your average student with $99,999 EFC- why would the school have a lower admission standard?"</p>

<p>If a school needs, e.g., half of the students to be paying full list price in order to operate, then the school <em>might</em> need lower standards for this group, if there were more qualified needy applicants than affluent applicants.</p>

<p>I understand. I have a part-time job...and of course I waited until Sunday to tackle my forms as well. Had to drive to PDX to get the envelope time stamped.</p>

<p>I avoided taxes more than my last few applications to college, even?!</p>

<p>If a school needs, e.g., half of the students to be paying full list price in order to operate, then the school <em>might</em> need lower standards for this group, if there were more qualified needy applicants than affluent applicants.
The top schools that have only need based aid- also have pretty hefty endowments- isn't Harvards something like $25 billion ?
Do they really need full paying students just to operate?
If you read more about what is spent per education, you will find that all students are subsidized, whether they are receiving aid or not. :)</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=164191%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=164191&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>( at Harvard students with families making under $60,000 can attend free)</p>

<p>Had to drive to PDX to get the envelope time stamped.
and I was thinking you lived on Mercer Island ;)</p>

<p>Nope...not that cliched...I hope. </p>

<p>Although.....I do know some people. :)</p>

<p>IB</p>

<p>Schools don't want to deplete their endowments, which do subsidize even list-price-paying students. My question is still about different standards to insure enough income to carry $0 EFC student without depleting endowments.</p>

<p>Isleboy--
I don't always agree with you, but I think you're brilliant. What college is lucky enough to have you as a student?</p>

<p>Hindoo:</p>

<p>I hope to get off the waitlist at Union College, but I put down my deposit at Dartmouth (my admissions pattern was a bit odd). As for brilliant, I don't know. I just have had a unique opportunity to see both sides. Just trying to understand myself, my peers and my parents--to locate and develop who I am--and to be connected to a larger world community. Cheezy sounding, but true.</p>

<p>I was just lucky. It is surreal sometimes. There's the less-affluent/affluent dicotomy, the non-URM/URM dicotomy, and the East Coast/West Coast one. And I sit on both sides of them, since I belong to/have been in both categories at different times.</p>

<p>I think it was having to balance what is good for me as an individual, while having to look at how my coices would affect other people I care about. With internal merit-aid versus need-based aid, it is difficult. Where do you draw that line?</p>

<p>On one hand, I believe in the power and ability of individuals to contribute in a significant way, but I also have to recognize that, as a community, educational opportunities for all should be one of our greatest concerns. </p>

<p>As for most of the 'smarts' I have, it's actually due watching some of my peers and friends having that sense of entitlement without much responsibility. I used to think what they believe and what they said in peer situations were different...but with the admissions cycle, the tongue-in-cheek humor became a bit darker. Very strange, especially when it came from my close friends and some of their parents. I often had to remind them that I belonged to some of the categories they joked about.</p>

<p>It took me a few months to sort it all out. And, I had a spot of trouble with the distance that it caused among my group of friends. It got better, but it's still more about side-stepping particular college issues to maintain an uneasy peace.</p>

<p>Sorry about the story, but I think (as parents know) we usually learn more from difficult situation than from an easy one.</p>

<p>IB</p>

<p>I live in a small town full of people who work at McDonalds, etc. Still, there are more and more students from my (horribly underfunded) school going to college, usually to state schools. There are a few kids going to prestigious schools (though no Ivy ivies this year) and I'm not sure quite how they are paying for it, probably loans. I happen to be from a middle-income family. We live comfortably, but we are also a pretty practical family and my parents have always been great with credit and financial matters (might have something to do with my dad being a bank consultant and my mom being pretty practical.) Still, it was SUCH a relief when we found that I would only have to pay a little over $2000 for my college education instead of $31,000+ a year. I've always been in the 'gifted' programs and great grades, etc. and I've worked hard for the merit scholarships I received. They will make it so much easier for me to manage going to college, being able to pay for all the supplies I'll need (architecture major=paying for lots of projects, computer programs, tools, materials, etc...) and I'll still be able to go shopping once in a while. I know a lot of my friends (3 in particular) who are middle-class kids for this area simply because the cost of living is so much lower here than many places and so they are VERY lucky to be getting merit scholarships to pay for college they might not otherwise be able to manage. Just my personal experiences :)</p>