<p>i cant believe all the cynics up here. It’s really nice Bowdoin made that offer. Let’s be happy for them.</p>
<p>I don’t think the support is fair. It is being offered only because this murder was in the news. Countless ordinary families without life insurance or pensions, suffer tragic deaths of parents or other misfortunes, and don’t get ful financial aid or a flood of donations.</p>
<p>This support from the college is based on emotion or perhaps on publicity, not principle or policy.</p>
<p>I would feel better if this young person qualified for aid the way anyone would, through the EFC on a FAFSA and reasonable adjustments based on projected income after the Dad was killed.</p>
<p>I’d imagine the son at Bowdoin is well aware that life isn’t completely fair.</p>
<p>Bowdoin didn’t have to do anything because the Yankees pay for the education of all NYPD officers killed on duty. But Bowdoin did step up, so good for them. Alumni who wanted to help the student stay at Bowdoin can give money into the fund to help the family, so good for them. The second son can take the Yankees money. All good things here. No need for any bad guys or finger pointing.</p>
<p>I guess Bowdoin will learn that no good deed goes unpunished. </p>
<p>“is being offered only because this murder was in the news. Countless ordinary families without life insurance or pensions, suffer tragic deaths of parents or other misfortunes, and don’t get ful financial aid or a flood of donations”</p>
<p>It’s not “fair” that ALS got all that money through the ice bucket challenge when there are plenty of other terrible diseases. </p>
<p>It’s not “fair” that I rolled down my window and gave 2 granola bars to the homeless person on a Route 5 when there’s also a homeless guy on Route 10 which Is a route I don’t take. </p>
<p>For that matter, it’s not “fair” that most of us on the board are upper or upper middle SES and have the luxury to debate the finer points of Williams vs Amherst vs Middlebury vs Bowdoin when kids on ranches in North Dakota or kids in the barrio of LA don’t have a prayer of ever hearing about them, much less going. </p>
<p>Difference is, there’s no need to begrudge nice, helpful actions just because not every person in need isn’t being helped. </p>
<p>It’s not like this is some scam, and all sorts of greedy parents are going to go out and become cops an get themselves killed on duty so they can send their kid to a top private college…</p>
<p>From the Boston Globe – </p>
<hr>
<p>Scott Hood, Bowdoin’s vice president for communication and public affairs, said the college will provide Justin Ramos with full tuition following the “extraordinary and tragic” circumstances of his father’s death.</p>
<p>“This is what a need-based financial aid program is designed to do,” Hood said Tuesday by phone. “It changes lives.”</p>
<p>Since the shootings in Brooklyn, he said, the college has received an outpouring of calls and e-mails from various organizations, individuals, and alumni asking how they could help the family. Bowdoin has set up a fund to facilitate and collect donations, which will be remitted to the Ramos family. Hood said these donations will go directly toward the family’s expenses, and are separate from the financial aid Ramos will receive from the college.</p>
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<p>Hmmm. So the college has received an outpouring of calls /emails from affiliated people asking if they could help. Just like blossom said! Imagine that! </p>
<p>Honestly, this was common sense 101 in addition to PR 101. Far better for them to issue a press release and set up the separate fund so they could most efficiently direct people who wish to help accordingly, than re-explain hundreds of times that “private matters are private and we couldn’t possibly reveal that we are picking up tuition.”</p>
<p>Sounds like Bowdoin is acting with grace and class here and should be commended. I would expect / hope a similar response from my kids’ schools. </p>
<p>And some people on CC have learned about how the world works, so it’s all good!! </p>
<p>Setting up a fund immediately is a lesson learned from the Newtown school shootings where people were quite literally sticking a ten dollar bill in an envelope and mailing it to “Sandy Hook Tragedy, CT”. Within a day of the shooting, there were people making Facebook pages and soliciting donations (people with zero affiliation, who didn’t live or work in CT)- some of them have already been prosecuted and convicted for mail fraud and various other interstate commerce violations. The town didn’t have a protocol in place for handling envelopes of cash showing up from random places and consequently, didn’t have an audit function for cash.</p>
<p>So now- sadly- everyone knows the drill. Issue the press release, tell the kind folks out there that there is an official way to help, allow the paid employees of the college to do what they get paid to do and not become full time cashiers or social workers.</p>
<p>Every tragedy builds on the last one. Take a seminar in crisis management and you will get a sad and depressing look at both mass disasters of the last decades, and at the social changes in our society. Those lovely and spontaneous displays of teddy bears and wreaths and votive candles and cards which show up overnight when someone dies under tragic circumstances? Unheard of in the 1960’s. Now law enforcement and building managers and custodians need to learn how to gracefully remove flammable material so you don’t get another catastrophe on your hands. Who can anticipate this stuff???</p>
<p>Hopefully MiddKid understands now that there were real reasons for the press release expressing sympathy, announcing that they were covering the college costs and here’s a fund for the family’s personal use that weren’t just “let’s pat ourselves on the back and brag how great we are.” </p>
<p>The other thing is - the alums WANT to hear that their school is stepping up to the plate with helping “one of their own.” They are part of the audience for the press release / website letter too. </p>
<p>These posts all support what I was saying in the first place. This particular kid has a lot of financial support even without Bowdoin’s gesture. Chances are there are other students who need the help more.</p>
<p>To further explain, here is a hypothetical situation. The higher wage earner in a family has a stroke and can no longer work. The FAFSA and Profile rely on previous year’s income to establish aid amount, so the family’s EFC is still based on a year’s income when the parent was still working. The kid has to withdraw or a family in financial trouble has to deepen that trouble.</p>
<p>Some schools will make an adjustment, some won’t. Full disclosure, we have experienced both in our family.</p>
<p>The police officer’s kid draws widespread sympathy- and offers of financial support- further augmented by Bowdoin’s response, while all over the country there are families without sufficient funds due to tragedy, or, for that matter, poverty. I feel for the son, don’t get me wrong, but he may not need Bowdoin’s generosity.</p>
<p>Obviously, being in the media news helps garner support and funds. I don’t think a college should offer extra aid on that basis unless it is merited through the usual process of applying for financial aid, including the sometimes flawed process of seeking adjustments for unusual circumstances.</p>
<p>I really don’t understand why you guys don’t get it. But that’s all from me.</p>
<p>Editing to add that while Bowdoin has no business paying for a student who has sufficient funds from other sources, it also occurs to me that as long as the Yankees and donors contribute to the son’s costs, Bowdoin’s gesture may in fact not involve much money at all from the school, anyway.</p>
<p>Do you get that the vast majority of people who have nice safe jobs are especially thankful for the police , miilitary, and firefighters who have volunteered to face the dangers and horribly messy situations that need to be dealt with so that everybody else can have the lives they have chosen? And when one of these folks gets murdered in the line if duty some people view it as more.deserving of sympathy than if a stock broker has a heart attack while playing tennis at a country club?</p>
<p>Personally, I think how a college (and the college community) respond to a tragedy touching one of its students is something to consider when judging the college.</p>
<p>Here’s a somewhat related situation. An alum of my alma mater was a journalist who was sadly beheaded in the Middle East by extremists. The u issued press releases honoring his memory, giving him a posthumous award for courage in journalism. They also held a special ceremony at the chapel memorializing him. His family was there, etc. There was a big article in the alum magazine, and notices on FB that we all shared in solidarity. There were press releases (and bigger than the Bangor daily news, lol) announcing this. </p>
<p>Now he’s not the only 40-something alum to have died. Plenty of “everyday” alums died, too - including one of my closest friends who died 3 years ago of cancer. </p>
<p>But we all intuitively understand why the u honored this particular deceased alum publicly, while my friend got just a line in the alumni magazine noting her passing. No one thinks it’s “unfair” - we recognize that certain circumstances may call for more public responses. </p>
<p>It’s entirely appropriate that Bowdoin issue a press release on this, and not issue a press release that they just adjusted FA for the kid of the stockbroker who died or the kid of the waitress who just lost her job. Some situations are less anonymous and so be it. Of course the stockbroker’s family misses him as much as the Ramos family misses their father; that’s not the point. </p>
<p>I was not referring to a stockbroker. That is a distortion of my point. I was actually thinking of families with marginally adequate incomes for college, or families already on financial aid, who then lose a wage-earner.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, the point is that very often the waitress’s son or daughter does not get an adjustment to aid if the waitress dies- at least until the following year. I am only saying that an increase in aid in a case featured in the media should parallel what is done for others. Even better, schools should provide for all students in similar cases.</p>
<p>The media create stories that involve the nation emotionally, and there is some sort of group psychology involved. I think the reactions here are a bit of a mob mentality, frankly, but that really is all from me. What you may feel or not feel about police officers is not all that relevant. There are formulas for aid, and procedures to adjust them in unusual circumstances (at some schools) and the fairest thing is to stick to those. End of story.</p>
<p>Chances are Bowdoin won’t have to provide a penny anyway.</p>
<p>“Pizzagirl, the point is that very often the waitress’s son or daughter does not get an adjustment to aid if the waitress dies- at least until the following year. I am only saying that an increase in aid in a case featured in the media should parallel what is done for others. Even better, schools should provide for all students in similar cases.”</p>
<p>I agree. It’s quite possible Bowdoin IS doing that for other students in hard-luck situations; it’s just that it’s not public-interest the way this case is. </p>
<p>Stock broker, waitress, or folks who work on trucks that puck up our trash…all necessary, all difficult, but none of them have chosen a path where they will be asked to risk life and limb NOT for their own enrichment but for others. Lots of noble folks in the world, but not many volunteer to take risks like cops, military, and firefighters.</p>
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<p>Schools that are need blind have a policy of keeping kids in school, even when circumstances change mid stream. I know this for a fact because my job situation changed from the tax year that was originally used for my D’s financial aid application to the time she actually got her award. I did a request for a review and the aid was adjusted accordingly. </p>
<p>This is probably directly tied to how large their endowment is. For example, when the stock market crashed in 2008, Yale asked kids who may have been full pay to let them know if their financial situation had changed enough that they now needed to be considered for aid. So for sure, if there is a tragedy in the home that substantially changed the family’s income, then aid would be given accordingly. One of the beauties of going to a school of this caliber (and as mentioned earlier, no, life is not fair).</p>
<p>I don’t have an issue with what Bowdoin did here considering one of their own students suffered a serious loss not only of a father, but that loss also has a serious economic impact on his family. </p>
<p>At the same time, I will defend middkidd86’s right to make his argument without the seeming pile-on which is occurring.</p>
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<p>While being a police officer is dangerous and deadly as shown with the recent tragedy of Ramos and Liu, there are many more dangerous jobs according to the US BLS as shown below:</p>
<p><a href=“Loggers - America's most dangerous jobs - CNNMoney”>http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/jobs/2014/09/11/most-dangerous-jobs/</a></p>
<p>Among the jobs listed in the most dangerous jobs category are roofers, power-line workers, and garbage truck drivers/collectors. </p>
<p>Really?? You can’t grasp the difference? Lots if those deaths are due to negligence, and accidents, not due to trying to protect the vulnerable from bad folks who are intent on killing them. </p>