At schools that don't meet full need, how do merit and need based aid interact?

[thumper1]

@Sammacd

I had a nephew turn down his top choice in favor of a place that offered more money. When he told his top school his decision, they asked him to send his offer from the other school. They straight-up matched it.

This only happens when the school has deep enough pockets to actually provide additional money. And it does not happen everywhere.

But it never hurts to ask…

[fiftyfifty1]

@thumper1

This only happens when the school has deep enough pockets to actually provide additional money.

Although it’s not “additional money”, it’s additional discounts.

When a college is not filling, I wonder how much an additional student really costs. The dorms are already heated. The professors are already paid. I suppose the additional food still costs money, but maybe even the food has already been contracted. I suppose little things like printing, mailings do increase. What else am I missing?

For some of these schools, maybe the decision is no longer between a better student paying X vs a lesser student paying x+1. Maybe it’s between a student paying X and nobody.

[Sammacd]

Education is absolutely a fixed cost business. Until you have to start building more dorms or hiring new teachers, the cost of adding a student is negligible. The school my nephew is at is a good school, but not elite in terms of selectivity. It does have a few really competitive programs, though, and there are always kids who don’t get in to those. It’s a bit of a guessing game; sometimes they can get a pretty high level kid to come in undecided and work to get into, say, pharmacy, later on. I think they’d prefer that kid instead of someone with rock-bottom scores, as they have to care about their rankings. Every place will be different. I’m just saying the past few years the cards have been stacked toward the applicants as enrollment nationwide has taken a dive. Not all of them are Harvard, so they have to find ways to compete. And some of them are turning to cost of attendance if they have to.

And yes, it’s not always that they have deep pockets with actual dollars in an account they use to cover the tuition. They just charge less, because getting even $1 is more than $0.

The real danger is when parents and students begin comparing notes and smell blood on the water, and hold out forever before committing. I am telling my kids they should absolutely string it out as long as they can to see who offers the best deal. So I am part of the problem.

[ucbalumnus]

@kelsmom

I can provide a solid response that yes, there are schools that reduce need based aid when merit is awarded, even when need has not been met. I worked at a school that did this. It was a state university, and the board of governors set the rule: every student would receive need based aid in the amount of average tuition - expected family contribution, if EFC was less than tuition. However, any merit aid awarded by the school or any other entity would reduce the amount of the need based aid dollar for dollar. The financial aid office was charged with adjusting the need based award if new merit scholarships were awarded (for example, if the student got a community scholarship). It was the rule.

At this school, when need aid was reduced due to merit scholarships, were expected student loans and work study the first to be reduced, or were need-based grants the first to be reduced?

[kelsmom]

Need based grants were first to be reduced. That was because the BOG had pledged that every student would be guaranteed to have average tuition costs met by free money after FAFSA EFC. As a state school that in all honesty did not get a fair share of state resources compared to some other schools in the state, the only way to make it work for everyone was to reduce need based if scholarships were received.

[ucbalumnus]

@fiftyfifty1

When a college is not filling, I wonder how much an additional student really costs. The dorms are already heated. The professors are already paid. I suppose the additional food still costs money, but maybe even the food has already been contracted. I suppose little things like printing, mailings do increase. What else am I missing?

When all of the following are under capacity, then the marginal cost of adding another student is likely quite small:

• The school’s classes overall.
• The student’s major.
• The dorms at schools where living in the dorm is the usual situation (at least in frosh year).
• Any other typically used student services that can be capacity-limited.

[twoinanddone]

Adding one or 10 students might be negligible, but when the school adds 100 or 300, that may mean keeping a dorm that could be closed open, or adding sections to the bio classes. Even the one or 10 students is going to mean more water use, more trash, more food, just more people around the campus. That can be a good thing, providing more energy to the campus, but it’s not free.

If it is a small enough campus, word can get out too, and people want to know why they didn’t get that same deal. A teammate of my daughter’s father was bragging that she was getting a ‘full ride’ and we didn’t get that (I don’t think she did either, and I think her ‘full ride’ included a lot of loans).