| Fast27:
As I noted, the Ivies have initiated new FA policies that go beyond what they were doing previously, led by H and Y. They have endowments that allow them to do this. Significant merit aid has been pretty common at the privates below the Top 20-25 as they have to compete with the top publics (example: three years ago, my son was offered enough merit aid by two good but not top 25 privates that the COA was competitive with the cost of OOS publics) but the Ivies and the top 25 privates (Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Georgetown, Wash U, Emory, NYU, etc. - these are just examples, don't flame me for including a school you scorn or excluding your school or for daring to include "that" school in a list with your school) didn't have to worry about that - they could get enough to pay full price or close to it. Now, the Ivies, for reasons both altruistic and self-preserving, have gotten more generous.
Now aid is better at both the privates above Duke (the Ivies) and below (American and Ithaca, my son's examples) and, of course, all the publics have lower COAs, whether IS or OOS. Your experience exemplifies this.
Now, the question is "How will this 'sandwich' group deal with the problem?" A lot depends on the size of their endowments, whether they can afford to "keep up with the Ivies" or whether they decide to try to continue in that middle category. Some, probably including Duke, will follow the Ivies' lead and try to keep up with the Ivies, others will not or decide they cannot and will continue to lose the most desireable students to the Ivies and the privates who follow them and will start to see other desireable students bolting for the still very good privates that do offer significant merit aid.
So, again, this is not Duke consciously deciding to be stingy -- it is just playing by the rules of the game as they have been in place for the past few years. But the rules are changing.
Frankly, I'm in the camp that no school that is $45-50K per year is a good value. That doesn't mean it is not an excellent education, but is an Ivy (or a Duke or Georgetown) really worth 5x more than it would cost to go to a very good in-state public (in our case U Delaware) or twice what a very good OOS public or very good private would cost? If you can afford it and if you are willing to spend the money then go ahead and do it, but don't kid yourself that you are getting a great deal. Also, try to remember, it's not personal, it's business.
--K9Leader |