<p>“mini, are you saying that the students who receive need-based financial aid are “better qualified, more capable” than the ones who are paying full freight? If so, I’d love to see the data that led you to this conclusion”</p>
<p>On average, at schools that are need-aware (most privates), mini is right. When the financial aid budget is depleted, less qualified full-payers are admitted in lieu of better qualified needy students. It’s part of how private schools are funded.</p>
<p>
While that may be true of some full-pay students at a later date in the admissions process, it is not true of all full-pay students at any particular institution.</p>
<p>
vossron, if this statement is accurate and the condition it describes is widespread… then why would URM status (as it is, rightly or wrongly, generally taken to reflect low SES) be considered a “hook” anywhere? Why would the economically disadvantaged need a “hook?” Why would they need special enrichment programs such as the one that JiffsMom cited in post #25? If they are better qualified and more capable than their full-freight peers, why all the fuss over the “unfair advantage” of extra preparation and resources that students of a higher SES have?</p>
<p>Back to the main question, though. mini’s argument seems to be (and he has affirmed rather than corrected this interpretation) that the full-freight student is rightly paying a surcharge for the benefit he gains from the presence of the student receiving need-based aid, who is somehow better qualified and more capable. This is what I’m asking about. What is that benefit? And what constitutes “better qualified?” If it isn’t reflected in test scores, grades, academic rigor, and extracurricular activities (as we’re told the economically advantaged students have unfair advantages in all of those metrics)… then what is it?</p>
<p>In posts #4 and #14, mini seemed to state that students who receive need-based aid are better qualified because they bring “diversity” to the student body (or perhaps better qualified and bring “diversity”). I’d be quite happy to recognize the value of “diversity,” but I have yet to see a concise definition of the term or an explanation of what makes it so valuable. From the context of this thread and others on CC, it seems clear to me that some forms of “diversity” are deemed more equal than others. Fine, that may well be the case. I had hoped that mini would explain the difference in terms that would make it as clear to me as it is to him, so that I might determine whether we agree or disagree as to whether the difference has a value in excess of $37,000 for the paying party.</p>
<p>How quickly USA has forgotten the discrimination controversy of the sixties and seventies. Does discrimination only apply to gender, skin color, nationality, religion, or race? </p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon in 2004, said that they raised tuition in part to help fund need scholarships. </p>
<p>Following is Harvard’s view on scholarships and financial aid.
[The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Magazine :: Why Can’t Harvard Be Free?](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519963]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519963)</p>
<p>“While that may be true of some full-pay students at a later date in the admissions process, it is not true of all full-pay students at any particular institution.”</p>
<p>That’s exactly why I said on average; it affects the average. :)</p>
<p>g_m, poor URMs have a hook before the money runs out, but afterwards rich URMs still have a hook. Apples and oranges, even if the majority of URMs are poor.</p>
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<p>So you’re saying that, on average, full-pay students are less qualified and less capable than need-based aid students?</p>
<p>If so, I disagree.</p>
<p>Yes, but with a subtle caveat: Of the students accepted at a need-aware school where the aid budget was depleted, on average, the full-pay students will be (slightly? hard to say) less qualified than the students receiving aid. It is simply unavoidable if, going down the ranked list, students needing aid are skipped in favor of those lower down who are paying full freight.</p>
<p>
That’s the original point of this thread. The issue on the table here is mini’s statement in post #4:
The question on the table here is, how exactly does the full-freight student get a better education by personally subsidizing need-based aid for other students? From mini, we have an assertion that the students receiving need-based aid are better qualified and more capable. From vossron, we have an assertion that after a college’s financial aid resources are exhausted, then the subsequently admitted students receiving need-based aid are better qualified and more capable than subsequently admitted full-freight students. Even if either of those assertions were proven true, I’m still not seeing how either condition yields a benefit worth an additional $37,000 to the full-freight student.</p>
<p>Back to this:
By this, do you mean to say that the $37k “aid for other students surcharge” is actually more of a penalty for class transgressions against the other students, rather than an “investment in a better education” as mini asserted?</p>
<p>I read your linked article with interest. This part seems in conflict with mini’s assertion.
So merit aid gets better students, and that’s phony and bad. According to another part of the article, need-based aid is good because it makes the college “economically diverse” (there’s that word again). In addition to expanding financial aid, Harvard added “an intensive college-prep program for financially disadvantaged students from Boston” (implying that financially disadvantaged students are in need of additional preparation). None of this seems to reinforce mini’s assertion that students who receive need-based aid are better qualified and more capable than students who are deemed capable of paying full freight…</p>
<p>I just thought I’d point out that Johns Hopkins does not meet 100% need for all students, AND it awards merit based financial aid. Their average MERIT scholarship is HIGHER than their average need-based grant (source: Common Data Set, 2007-2008). So some of that money is going to subsidize merit awards for students who may or may not have actual financial need. </p>
<p>Also, reading carefully, the quote from the article:
</p>
<p>It sounds to me like the problem is money management & their falling endowment. See: [Johns</a> Hopkins University endowment drop brings hiring freeze, cost cuts - Baltimore Business Journal:](<a href=“http://baltimore.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2009/02/09/daily44.html]Johns”>http://baltimore.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2009/02/09/daily44.html)</p>
<p>If 15% of their total revenue goes to financial aid, then its mostly a matter of accounting to say that 24% of tuition revenues go to financial aid – they are dipping into the tuition revenues to avoid dipping somewhere else.</p>
<p>Vossron, you’ve added specific qualifiers to mini’s assertion: a need-aware school experiencing a depletion of their need-based aid budget. Mini cited neither of those. Furthermore, the extent of those qualifiers differs in the various need-aware schools depending on the varying applicant pools each year and the investment performance of each school’s endowment from year to year.</p>
<p>I disagree that full-pay students are less qualified and less capable than need-based aid students.</p>
<p>A brilliant, industrious poor URM student from a bad public school may get an SAT score of 2000/2400, is the only student in school to take AP Calculus, gets a score of 4, plays a pretty good game of basketball in the neighborhood, and works at the local burger king a few hours a week. </p>
<p>A rich non-URM student from an elite private school may get an SAT score of 2100/2400 after private tutoring, an AP Psych score of 4 after extensive coaching, be on the varsity tennis team, and do an expensive ‘service trip’ in Costa Rica. </p>
<p>Both kids are qualified, but who is intrinsically more “capable”? Who will be a more interesting roommate?</p>
<p>And I forgot to add- the poor URM kid’s parents didn’t go to college, while the rich kid’s parents are college educated professionals who spend quite a bit of time on C.C and know all the ins and outs of admissions. Plus, they hired a private counselor to help with the process and an ‘editor’ to help with the essays.</p>
<p>I don’t really get the issue of this discussion. When paying tuition, I am purchasing a product, “The College Experience” for my son. Like with the purchase of any product, we evaluate the price in terms of value to us-- is “The College Experience” at Wow U, worth x number of dollars to us? If so, we write the check, if not we move to some other college’s product instead. What Wow U does with the money I spent on the product is none of my business, any more that what the yard man does with the money I pay him is any of my business-- if he wants to donate it to goodwill or go out for lobster that is his business, even if I think he should be using it for remedial dental work.</p>
<p>I think race should be taken out of this discussion. The kid with need isn’t necessarily an URM. And URMs can be wealthy.</p>
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<p>Would you not make an attempt to make up for it at all? You can try. Any motivated student will definitely succeed, even in a short period of time. If the student doesn’t CARE, then in that case no, you can’t and won’t ever be able to make up for it. But I doubt that very many uncaring, disadvantaged students even bother with college.</p>
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<p>I completely agree. </p>
<p>But until then, at some level, these kids need help. If colleges are willing and able to offer it, then by any means. If tuition goes toward it - so what? Tuition goes toward the expensive engineering programs and buildings too. What one student doesn’t use, another will. The whole thing about tuition is oh, yeah, well, I’m paying for someone else. The same could be said for an English major who is paying tuition to fund the new engineering building, or a pacifist who is paying taxes to support the troops. I wish we could pick and choose what we pay for, but that just isn’t the case.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t tie in with mini’s reference at all. I was responding only to the part of the post that I posted. I’m not sure I did more than even skim that post, to be honest.</p>
<p>So we’re agreed then? If our goal is to educate “the best and brightest” then only full-pay students go to college. If the goal is social remediation we keep the current system.</p>
<p>Deirdre Tours–While I like your analogy about buying a product and not caring about how the money is used, my original motivation in posting was that many young people are borrowing that last $10K and up to fill the gap between met and unmet need–whether it is parents or schools meeting needs. </p>
<p>This year, in particular, many people’s situations have changed. They have lost jobs and lost on investments and are not as willing to take the risk of the higher priced schools. My daughter got in to two top-ranked schools that ended up being out of our price range-- perhaps not of what we could pay at the sacrifice of other things (like retirement savings), but what we are willing to pay. If the tuition at those schools (and neither was Hopkins) were 24 percent less, she could have gone. She accepted one of eight full-tuition scholarships she was offered at a very fine OOS state university, but not her first choice.</p>
<p>We don’t want anyone to feel sorry for us. We are in financial Purgatory as I am sure many upper-middle class people are: make too much to have anyone feel sorry for us, but not enough to write the check for $58K.</p>
<p>^ Each family makes the best of their particular situation. We have three to educate, and no, we can’t (in good conscience) write annual checks for $174,000. But we manage. The great thing about America is OPPORTUNITY – for almost everyone, there is a path to a better life … if one is willing to find and follow it.</p>
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<p>This kid does math at an elementary level. It would take 2.5 years to
get him up to university level math. I suspect that it would take two
years to get to college reading and writing. That’s a lot of money
that someone is paying for. This money could go towards a student that
is prepared for college work that doesn’t otherwise have funding.</p>
<p>Making up for K12 at the college level is a crutch for K12. Even
trying to fix the problem at the college level lets K12 off the hook.</p>
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<p>There are a lot of kids in-between. They care enough to get the money,
attend classes, and do some of the work but they don’t know the ins
and outs of college and life and they make life mistakes that result
in big setbacks.</p>
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<p>As even elite universities have found out, resources are limited.
Colleges are willing and may be able to offer it but someone
still has to pay for it. Colleges have been pushing the limits for
sometime and at some point they will hit it and consumers will say,
“No Mas!”</p>
<p>“Tuition goes toward the expensive engineering programs and buildings
too.”</p>
<p>My son’s school has a surcharge for his engineering program related to
the labs that he takes. The buildings look like something that you’d
find in Eastern Europe - they’re from the 1960s. Education doesn’t
have to be expensive - you don’t have to have fancy new buildings and
facilities.</p>
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<p>Your attitude is that money is easy, as long as it comes from someone
else.</p>
<p>“The same could be said for an English major who is paying tuition to
fund the new engineering building, or a pacifist who is paying taxes
to support the troops.”</p>
<p>There are some efficiencies to organizing. Or else we would just have
individual schools that cater to specific majors and programs.</p>
<p>“I wish we could pick and choose what we pay for, but that just isn’t
the case.”</p>
<p>Well, to mosh everything together and just say that this is
cost-effective and that isn’t is intellectually dishonest. On the other
hand, the costs for remedial services aren’t hard to find and it’s hard
to make a case that you wouldn’t need this expense at all if you had
students that are prepared, both academically and financially.</p>
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<p>Not to take sides or comment on anything but the numbers:</p>
<p>Although that claim is true for freshman, it is not true of all undergraduates. In 2007-2008 JHU fully met the financial need of 98.6 percent of all undergraduate aid recipients (that’s 37 percent celcius;) ). The total dollars spent on need-based gift awards is 33 times that spent on non-need gift awards.</p>
<p>Of all undergraduates, it gave merit-based awards to 68 students without need, averaging $20,273 for a total of $1,378,564.</p>
<p>It gave need-based gift awards to 1784 undergraduate students, averaging $24,954, for a total of $44,517,936.</p>
<p>(source: Common Data Set, 2007-2008).</p>
<p>DierdreTours: I think your post#52 is spot on. As a consumer of college education, I agree with you completely. Airlines have been doing this all the time. If I paid $600, it is none of my business that the passenger in the seat next to me paid $200 and it is none of my business that it costs the airline $400 per seat to operate that flight (hence I am subsidizing the next passenger by $200).</p>