<p>Dstark:
Some applicants need a full-ride to attend colleges. Others may only want a full ride as opposed to needing it. Yes, need is subjective. Determining whether a student needs or merely wants a certain level of finaid is not arbitrary or even one-sided: there is room for resolving finaid issues (in other words negotiations or discussions, whatever terminology one prefers) and if these issues are not resolved, then the applicant is released from ED.</p>
<p>Poetgrl:</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is that even full pay students are subsidized.</p>
<p>By whom? ten</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, well I’m glad you’ve figured out the secret formula! Can you do me a favor and call up the financial aid people at my daughter’s college? Because they’ve been meeting 100% need for the past 4 years by adding anywhere from $10,000 to $18,000 to my FAFSA EFC. Do you think they’ll refund me the amount they’ve been overcharging all these years because they didn’t have your inside information?</p>
<p>The colleges themselves. The point that is made is that it actually costs more to educate students than what the full COA covers.</p>
<p>
No one is saying that they are. </p>
<p>But if a student applies for financial aid and the award is not enough, in their opinion, to meet their need, they can turn down the ED spot. </p>
<p>The only exception I see would be where the financial aid award was essentially a full ride, based on a 0 EFC. Students at the very low end of the economic scale are likely to get such offers. The rest of us may find that the college’s idea of “100% need” is often a very unrealistic figure.</p>
<p>Marite, I agree with you. Post 981.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, I agree with your sentiments in post #980.</p>
<p>“Dstark aren’t endowments tax exempt? Do colleges pay property taxes? I can’t recall.”</p>
<p>Endowment income isn’t taxed. Property taxes are state and local so I am not sure if there is one answer. </p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t appear too. Yale, might. A tiny bit.
<a href=“http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/slam/node/181#question3[/url]”>http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/slam/node/181#question3</a></p>
<p>Don’t parent’s and students actually subsidize the high cost of the tuition bubble by taking out loans to pay? Hmmmmm. Just curious. I’m wondering, when a college includes a loan in a FA package and says, “We are meeting your needs,” isn’t it possible they are meeting THEIR own needs?</p>
<p>I think your whole paragraph is correct.</p>
<p>What is ridiculous is to say, Students should understand not to apply ED if they can’t afford the college when the literature of the college says students SHOULD apply regardless of “need.” What is ridiculous is the onus being put on the less than wealthy student. How about, no harm no foul. You told me you would meet my full need…“contract”…I said I would come there if admitted if you met my full need. Need not met. End of story.</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>“Why is this the ethics all about the student? But finaid “is what it is?” I really don’t understand that position. At all.”</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Some of these ethicists remind me of Bill Bennett. Bill Bennett was talking this isn’t ethical, that isn’t ethical…while gambling and losing and owing about $500,000 in gambling debts. Those that protest the loudest raise my suspicions about their own behavior.</p>
<p>Because they’ve been meeting 100% need for the past 4 years by adding anywhere from $10,000 to $18,000 to my FAFSA EFC"</p>
<p>That is amazing.</p>
<p>DStark:
That is uncalled for. Bill Bennett was a hypocrite. Are you saying those who invoke ethics on this thread are?
Yea, I see you give yourself an out with “raise my suspicions.” Not good enough.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Marite, the colleges will consider some factors and not others. Each college follows its own internal policies as to how to treat various issues; financial aid personnel in 100%-need schools tend to be very stuck on the idea of following “policy” or rules – so the “negotiation” or “discussion” usually won’t go anywhere unless the issue fits within the type of thing that the college is willing to consider.</p>
<p>Marite, I’m telling you my opinion. I’m suspicious of the protesters. When people start telling me what is ethical and what isn’t, and I’m not ethical…</p>
<p>Anneroku</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You have got to be kidding. Throw out ethics and you aren’t left with anything worthwhile</p>
<p>Newhope33</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We can only hope</p>
<p>First, I find it shocking that colleges can raise you 6, 10 or 18 thousand and call this “meeting full need” in the brochures. I think we “need” a new category for this kind of snake oil.</p>
<p>I have no idea what the finaid paperwork is like, but the more I hear, the more horrified I am by it, personally. I suppose colleges are in the center of some sort of PR war where they have to “seem” as if they are not trying to make money or something, but at some point, if I were a financial aid student or parent, I’d really wish it were more straight forward. But, to be fair, it’s probably one heck of a juggling act.</p>
<p>Marite–you always seem to know a ton about this stuff. So, this is a genuine question…if even full pay students are considered to be subsidized, why would a school like Dartmouth or Bowdin (sp?) etc…say that adding full pay students will help cover the loss in endowments? I really don’t understand.</p>
<p>Calmom:</p>
<p>Every year, there are students who drop out of their college because they can’t afford it. It has not happened to your child.While I don’t like those figures and am taken aback by the difference between the FAFSA EFC and what you are expected to pay, it looks like the college has been meeting your full need. One can argue that that particular college’s definition of “need” is far from generous. Equally, one can argue that it just shows the difference between “impossible” and “less desirable” and between “need” and “want.”</p>
<p>Calmom</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You have got to be kidding. So lets see, under your system a family decides their own criteria for determining their need. Hey - guess what, I just determined I need 100% aid. So has everyone else. Sorry poor college - you need to pay for all of us to attend. Where are you the college going to get the money - I don’t car, not my problem. my own criteria under the calmom method says I need 100% aid - so pay up now</p>
<p>That is the system you are advocating for calmom. Sorry, but that is beyond absurd. Without standard formulas and calculations (and most colleges use the same tools and data and generate similiar need based results), you can’t operate effectively.</p>
<p>poetgirl:</p>
<p>It wont. It will make less of a dent in the Dartmouth overstretched budget.</p>
<p>Dstark:</p>
<p>I have talked ethics. Are you calling my ethics in question?</p>
<p>What are the standard formulas that Penn uses to meet 100% of need?</p>
<p>“Without standard formulas and calculations (and most colleges use the same tools and data and generate similiar need based results), you can’t operate effectively.”</p>
<p>$10,000 to 18,000 above FAFSA. Hmmmm.</p>
<p>Marite, are you calling mine?</p>
<p>Calmom:</p>
<p>It is quite likely that the negotiations will not go anywhere at some colleges. But wouldn’t this fall under the rubric of “financial issues not resolved” allowing the ED applicant to be released? Again, what bugs colleges is not ED applicants going to state unis but going to peer institutions.</p>