Caltech is pretty much the rich SOB of between Caltech and Harvey Mudd. How does Mudd's Fin Aid compare (amount given, not percentage of recipients) to Caltech?
It is going to differ very much depending upon the person and the family financial situation (and as to whether one can snag an Axline or Presidential Award from Tech, or a CSP from Mudd).
It appears that, on average, Tech is among the better schools with aid, as shown by its receipt of a "best value" from one of the college ratings services, but this is an area in which averages don't necessarily provide much help.
(Son's experience is that Mudd's financial aid package was comparable to MIT, and far better than Cornell.)
Given that you're asking for a direct comparison I feel justified in answering this. (It's a very good question, by the way.)
After financial aid actually awarded, Caltech ends up--on average--being about $10,000 per year cheaper than Harvey Mudd.
Just anecdotally, I will add to the above poster that "comparable to MIT" squares with this figure and my experience as well. MIT's aid-adjusted price offer for me personally ended up being roughly $10,000 more expensive than Caltech's.
Caltech has been rated the (not "a" as above) "best buy in college education" (after accounting for actual aid given) by both Money Magazine and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. The top 50 best values for private institutions (both unis and LACs) are listed in the latter, which was just published recently. Caltech was #1 in the university category; Harvey Mudd did not make the top 50 in the LAC category.
However, of course, the only 100% reliable way to determine if the aid will be better for you at a given place is of course to apply, be accepted, and get a look at the over.
"Caltech was #1 in the university category; Harvey Mudd did not make the top 50 in the LAC category."
They did not even compare HMC to any of the LACs so I would consider this very misleading, especially referring to no making the top 50. I would say HMC just was not listed because its not your typical LAC.
With that in mind.......
There seems to be a consensus that HMC is similar in aid to MIT.
On that list in which Caltech is mentioned, MIT is 5th.
Figure out what this means to you.
Oh, I didn't actually realize that Harvey Mudd was actually not considered. Where did it say that?
Quote:
There seems to be a consensus that HMC is similar in aid to MIT.
On that list in which Caltech is mentioned, MIT is 5th.
Figure out what this means to you.
Well, there are two components to their ranking. Without putting too fine a point on it, we have two anecdotal data points (which calling a "consensus" is a bit of a stretch) that MIT is about $10,000 worse than Caltech per year.
We also know, more usefully, (from previous research I did based on figures at http://education.yahoo.com/college/facts/) that Harvey Mudd ends up being $10,000 more expensive than Caltech per year (figure out what $40,000 means to you, I guess), on average, when comparing the 65% of Caltech students that get aid to the 54% of Harvey Mudd students who get aid. But due to the fact that significantly more of the student body at Harvey Mudd is paying full freight, even that $10,000 figure understates the difference.
We also have no info on the second component of the Kiplinger ranking vis-a-vis Harvey Mudd, unfortunately. Since we have only very anecdotal info (two data points) on the first component and none on the second, we can't say with any certainty (or really even guess in anything like an educated fashion) that it would occupy MIT's position on that ranking.
I'll do a little more hunting around and see if I can uncover a bit more about the MIT financials; that would give us some info on the first component at least.
Last edited by Joe (Caltech '04); 05-03-2007 at 10:39 AM.
OK, did some more looking into this. Figures are for (total sticker price - non-loan aid). To summarize:
65% of Caltech students get aid, and they pay on average $13,200. That leaves 35% of students paying full freight of $40,518.
64% of MIT students get aid, and they pay on average $19,300 per year. That leaves 36% of students paying full freight of $43,550.
54% of Harvey Mudd students get aid, and they pay on average $22,200. That leaves 46% of students paying full freight of $44,258.
Someone could do a weighted average to figure out what the "true" average cost is by including the students paying full-freight in each case. I've got to run but I'm happy to do that later if no one else does.
Last edited by Joe (Caltech '04); 05-03-2007 at 10:51 AM.
Reason: Updated stats
65% of Caltech students get aid, and they pay on average $13,200. That leaves 35% of students paying full freight of $40,518.
64% of MIT students get aid, and they pay on average $19,300 per year. That leaves 36% of students paying full freight of $43,550.
54% of Harvey Mudd students get aid, and they pay on average $22,200. That leaves 46% of students paying full freight of $44,258.
Hmm I look at this and think that 10% more HMC students pay the 'full freight.' This makes me think that of the three colleges, HMC might have the students with the richest parents, which would also have a skew on the remaining 50+% that are getting aid.
Get data on the income of the parents of the students that go to these fine places.
That's possible...but is pretty speculative. If MIT/Caltech were generous in their awards (i.e. determining that students have more need on average than HMC), it would be consistent that they would have more people who would barely qualify in addition to having more people get higher amounts.
Also (because I don't know), does Mudd guarentee to meet all of a student's demonstrated need?
I am rather tired (Physics Lab Reports can get very tedious and cause extreme all nighters, as I am sure cghen knows :-)). So I can't really think straight enough to answer the questions. But I thought I'd offer this link to some good data that might help expand along some discussion: http://www.dof.hmc.edu/Facts/default.html .
The thing, when I got admitted to HMC last year, my parents had sold a house with a 200k capital gains on it. And even with that inflating my parents income to 350k+, HMC still offered me some aid (and even more when corrected). So my guess is those 46% not getting aid at HMC or CT or MIT are either loaded or are rich enough to no apply for FA.
...or will be borrowing much of their home equity to pay tuition...just because PROFILE says families can afford 1/3 of their income for college, no matter how well one plans...
The thing, when I got admitted to HMC last year, my parents had sold a house with a 200k capital gains on it. And even with that inflating my parents income to 350k+, HMC still offered me some aid (and even more when corrected). So my guess is those 46% not getting aid at HMC or CT or MIT [sic--percentages are lower at the last two] are either loaded or are rich enough to no apply for FA.
I don't think that follows at all from your case. I believe most schools have formulae that expect parents to contribute a much higher percentage of their real income (maybe as much as 15-20% of earned income and dividends/interest, I think, for the least generous schools at least) each year than their savings or investments (only a few percent each year for assets held in the parents' names--much more of college savings plans or the student's own assets, obviously). The fact that your parents booked a large capital gain obviously would be an investment transaction and a one-time thing--just shuffling assets around, really. Although I'm sure they considered that an asset, it would've been quite unfair for any college to consider that "income".
I don't see any good reason why Harvey Mudd or MIT students should be on average richer than Caltech students. For most people, Caltech is simply (much) less expensive: $10K/year cheaper, for me, and my parents certainly weren't any more well-off when I filled out the MIT forms than when I filled out the Caltech forms!
Last edited by Joe (Caltech '04); 05-03-2007 at 06:28 PM.
Well actually it was not considered a one-time thing at first, I had to clear that up with them to get my aid boosted. Since i got 10k initially, I thought hacking off 200k would be a lot, but it only boosted my aid up to 15.5, hence why I am at UCR for this year. The reason I think I got aid was because my family had zero dollars saved up, so there was no extra money to easily throw into the pot.
Anyways, I am not saying that CT students are on avg poorer than MIT students, but if you look at HMC it almost appears as an outlier. We already confirmed that MIT and HMC give similar packages to similar people, but looking at the averages shows that people at Mudd are receiving less aid, a likely indicator of a difference in parental wealth.
"looking at the averages shows that people at Mudd are receiving less aid, a likely indicator of a difference in parental wealth."
Could be parental wealth, or it could just be fewer funds being expended by the school (whether by choice or necessity). I don't know of any way to get sufficient data to compare socio-economic background of enrollees at different schools. (Might exist, but I'm unaware of it.) The experiences of a handful of people on this board may or may not be representative.
To reiterate my first comment to the OP, the only way any individual can compare two schools' financial aid programs is to get accepted to each and see what is offered. In the case of the two schools being discussed, the first part is not easy.
With our son, every school to which he was accepted promised to meet 100% of aid. But they defined aid differently at some schools--and at others, more or less of the aid was in loans, vs. grants or scholarships. There were huge differences within the 100% of need universe.
