<p>this has been posted by one of the mods, tokenadult but it is another way of looking at the financial aspect of college choice. The per student expenditure by college. Actually an important stat that says a lot about a college <a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1b.aspx?institutionid=216524[/url]”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1b.aspx?institutionid=216524</a></p>
<p>use the right arrow to see that info</p>
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<p>All right, this made me laugh. We’ve spent a small fortune to make sure that D1 can lead a culturally enriched life. Thank goodness she also took a few computer classes and can, in addition, pay for her car insurance!</p>
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<p>Agree with Marite that this article’s “solutions” would have had more traction in 2008–not really applicable to the endowments of 2010.</p>
<p>From what I hear endowments are coming back strong. I heard Swarthmore is back over a billion.</p>
<p>I have thought for a long while now that the basic model for FA is deeply flawed. The hype is that it is progressive, i.e., indexes tuition to income thus making college affordable for all. In fact, the FA model is terribly REgressive. Unlike income tax, which employs a rate that rises as income rises, FA charges a sliding scale tuition until an arbitrary income level (~180K) after which an absolute tuition amount is charged across the entire income spectrum, thus lumping the $200k families in with $200 million families. </p>
<p>If this is a “fair” model then why isn’t it our tax model?</p>
<p>The article is dancing around the heart of the issue. Families at low incomes and super rich incomes get tremendous bargains sending their kids to private college. It’s the affluent two-income professional couple families that get killed by it. Those are the kids who are least likely to attend when accepted at HYP, etc.</p>
<p>“Families at low incomes and super rich incomes get tremendous bargains sending their kids to private college.”</p>
<p>Access to college, private or public is based primarily on income/wealth. The bargains for low income families and even average income families are few and far between and usually require scores and grades in the top 5% of applicants. A very small percentage low income applicants, maybe five thousand a year, gain access to the need based schools and a “bargain” education. The other 95% either have limited college access, no access or access with huge debt. At $200K, families will have far more college options, both private and public than a low income or even average income kid. </p>
<p>The FA model was developed 40 years ago when sufficient aid and reasonable prices allowed students from all income levels to attend the colleges based on their qualifications. COA’s have risen dramatically at both publics and privates, while government aid and need based aid at most institutions has remained relatively flat. Now we have tuition discounting, a trend towards merit based FA awards and an accelerating stratification of college access along income lines. And in the last few years an increasing chorus of complaints from upper middle class families about cost. </p>
<p>While I sympathize with higher income families who resent paying full price for a need based school, there are many, many other options available for those families. If you want to turn down H, Y or P there are dozens of other top colleges offering substantial merit deals to good students from upper middle class families. Compared to the very limited options facing most low income and average income families, the complaining rings hollow. Yes, the system is failing but projecting advantage to the people at the bottom of the access ladder just distorts reality.</p>
<p>Well, I understand the logic of the above reasoning–that, for example, you get great aid below 60,000, so they amount you have to contribute is so low that even at that income level it is affordable, and if you make above, let’s say 200K, it’s easy to shell out 50K plus a year but that if you’re at 150K, it may be difficult to shell out that 50K tuition.</p>
<p>But I have never seen any numbers to bear out this ‘bi-modal’ distribution–with attendance that these schools being mostly <60K kids and >200K kids. </p>
<p>The closest I have seen to a chart showing income level and scholarship amount is a brochure sent to my house from Northwestern. I know it’s not HYPS etc, but it’s still a top private university, with a COA at around 53K.</p>
<p>According to their pie-chart, if a family’s AGI is between 0-30K, then the average scholarship is about 29,000, for a 30-60K family, the average scholarship is around 32,000, 60-90, the scholarship is about 28,000, 90-120K, the scholarshipis around 23,000. If a family’s AGI is between 120-150K, the average scholarship amount is about 16,000. More than 150K, then the scholarship is about 14,000.</p>
<p>So if your income is around 30-60K, you are paying 21,000 towards the cost of attendance. And if your income is around 120-150, you are paying about 37,000. </p>
<p>I think it would be just as hard, or even much harder, for that 30-60K family to come up with 21,000 as it is for that 120-150K family to come with 37,000.</p>
<p>Skrlvr provides a helpful illustration of aid distribution at Northwestern, and that is similar to what I have seen published by other like colleges.</p>
<p>What those numbers don’t share is what other factors result in receiving aid, the most significant of which is likely the number of siblings and the number of siblings in college or near college enrollment. </p>
<p>My family’s greatest struggle (and in the end for all of us, that is the prism through which we see the FA system) in sorting through this mess is trying to apply some degree of predictability as to the cost and responsibilities for us with respect to each child (we have five that will roll into college in relatively quick succession) and trying to be consistent in our commitments to each of our children. We have a very good income and have put away a significant amount of money, but it pales in comparison to the aggregate cost.</p>
<p>Actually, my point in my post was intended to be that colleges are missing a lot of tuition money by not charging the very wealthy a fair share. I think if college tuition mirrored the tax code, then most of us could pay far less and the extremely wealthy could pay an amount that was much more proportionate to their ability to pay. I think the end result is that the cost of attendance would be lower for the vast majority of students - and colleges would reap greater tuition funds.</p>
<p>Why should Donald Trump pay the same as me to send his kid to Harvard? It constitutes half our after-tax income to send our child there. It probably constitutes 1 percent or less for The Donald.</p>
<p>In general, I’m against class warfare but if we are going to try to extend the opportunity to attend these schools as broadly as possible, then that would be, I think, a very good way of doing it. As it stands, colleges charge the super wealthy a pittance of their wealth and then hope for endowment contributions.</p>
<p>So sewhappy, when Donald Trump buys a hot dog at a baseball game he should pay $10,000 so everyone else can eat free?</p>
<p>There’s also the fact that many 2nd, 3rd, or 4th tier private schools will charge you the same $50k (or close to it) annually. Many of the elite schools have a possibility of full aid–although much of it can be in loans.</p>
<p>The question is whether any of these schools are worth two or three times as much as a public school.</p>
<p>I don’t see how you could make the case credibly for a non-elite private school, and you can barely make it for the elites. It is possible that going to HYP, etc. can get you a better job placement with a B.A., but there is no advantage in getting into a decent graduate program.</p>
<p>speedo, I thought your post 46 was not only accurate, but eloquent.</p>
<p>latichever:</p>
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<p>I think I don’t entirely agree with the “no advantage” part. I agree that there is no impediment to getting into a decent graduate program – even fabulous graduate program–without HYP, etc. But it may be a little bit of an “edge,” especially if the student did do extremely well (admittedly that’s a big “if”) at a highly regarded U, when another equally regarded U is looking at that student as a graduate candidate.</p>
<p>skrlvr:
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<p>I think you missed the fine print that goes like “everyone who qualify with family income > 150K have multiple children in colleges, don’t have savings, and/or equity in their homes”.</p>
<p>“But it may be a little bit of an “edge,” especially if the student did do extremely well (admittedly that’s a big “if”) at a highly regarded U, when another equally regarded U is looking at that student as a graduate candidate.”</p>
<p>I’ll grant that all other things being equal HYP may have an edge over State U., but not necessarily. In fact, when it comes to grad school, and you’re looking more at the individual departments, and not the overall university, State U may be the one with a better department than HYP, and in such a case, having gone to that State U could actually be an edge.</p>
<p>I think the point is that if you do well at most universities, and can back that up with substantive achievements in your field of study, and a good GRE, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Let me ask this: where does the endowment money come from that funds need-based aid? Is it not largely from the rich and super rich? John Kluge $400 million to Columbia. In a recent capital fundraising campaign at Dartmouth, 1,111 gave $1.1 billion, 85% of the $1.3 billion raised. The rich are not compelled to pay huge sums of money to attend, but the do voluntarily give huge sums of money.</p>
<p>standrews,</p>
<p>And isn’t a wonderful world in which we depend on the kindness of strangers!</p>
<p>We take a progressive “to each according to their need” approach to tuition - we don’t for buying hotdogs - so why aren’t we consistent? Why do we cut a terrific deal to the very rich and hope for their charity?</p>
<p>It’s actually full of irony. These schools are the epicenter of liberal thought yet they are drowning in worship for the rich. It is the Bourgeoise they despise - those trying very hard to rise.</p>
<p>Forgive my cynicism. I’ve been up close and personal with this world a while now.</p>
<p>It is possible for the bourgeoise to afford the elite private schools, but you have to give up the bourgeois lifestyle for a bit. And at least you have that choice. </p>
<p>Everyone advocates for their own entitlement programs. For some, it’s higher education. And who will fund these programs? </p>
<p>And really, if it wasn’t for ‘liberal’ thought, the elite privates would still be closed to the bourgeoise–those trying very hard to rise. Because they would essentially be places where the ‘old boy’ network is much more important than it is now–I’m not saying that it isn’t important now, but it would be even more closed. Afterall, it was ‘liberal’ thinking that opened up these places to women, for example.</p>