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Which Private Colleges Have Offered Significant Aid to Low-Income Families?
CCEdit_Torrey
36 replies353 threads Editor
In this article, Dave Berry breaks down the top five most affordable colleges for low-income students. Which private schools have offered generous packages to you or your students? https://www.collegeconfidential.com/articles/most-affordable-private-colleges-for-low-income-families/
16 repliesPost edited by skieurope on
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Replies to: Which Private Colleges Have Offered Significant Aid to Low-Income Families?
The fifth school is Berea, which has a very small enrollment and is a work college. Yes, if accepted it will be affordable, but it’s not exactly a traditional college in terms of enrollment....and you must be low income to be considered for admission.
Frankly, I think this article is...well...not particularly good. It doesn’t give REALISTIC affordable options for low income students...and that is what many need.
The SUNY and CUNY schools can be affordable for instate students who are low income AND can continue to live at home!
The real challenge for every applicant who wants to go away for school and has financial constraints is finding that safety school that will accept-the applicant and cost no more than the student and family can afford. Sometimes there is no such school, and college means taking courses on line or at local college, maybe community college, sometimes one course at a time. If test scores and grades are not high, those are the only options for someone who can’t afford the cost of college.
My state, NY, has managed to come up with an award to cover most of state tuition for kids from family’s under a certain income. Still doesn’t cover kids who have to work— and part time is all, and certainly does not pay for the pricey room and board most SUNYs charge. Also, kids whose parents won’t give financial info , or who can but won’t pay are stuck. But it’s better than what a lot of states have to offer.
She applied to one state public school, one state private school, and then highly selective out-of-state private schools who pledged to meet demonstrated need without loans. At these schools she would need to provide student contributions like summer work or work study (or take out loans to offset her contribution.)
She is attending the cheapest school that admitted her that offers her major.
Interesting that the schools with the most generous financial aid, such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford & Duke, are also the schools for which many would be most willing to borrow funds in order to attend.
Even the highest performing students have, at best, a small chance of admissions to these ultra-selective schools -- and students coming from lower or moderate income families have the odds stacked against them to even qualify for admission in the first place. (They are likely to be attending poorer performing public high schools with fewer resources, less likely to have funds or resources to participate in the sort of EC's that colleges value, less likely to have meaningful support and advice early that would lead them to develop the sorts of profiles that the mega-selective colleges are looking for.).
A realistic option for affording college needs to be target schools where admission is highly likely. It's nice to know that if a student does get admitted, a particular college will likely be affordable -- but not much help to the vast majority of students who don't get admitted --- particularly the many who don't even show up in the admissions stats because they recognize they don't stand a reasonable chance of admission and don't apply in the first place.