<p>Yes, that’s right, but . . . it depends. Grain prices are sky-high now and it’s pretty clear they’ll remain high due to the drought, which is producing a disastrous crop throughout much of the Corn Belt. Farmers and feedlot operators can’t afford the grain to raise grain-fed animals to the full size they’d usually get, so a lot of young hogs and cattle are being slaughtered now, pushing prices down a bit. Similarly, for range-fed cattle, the forage is pretty poor in many places and it’s too expensive to substitute grain, so many are being brought to market right now. But that means fewer mature animals will be coming to market later on, pushing prices back up, possibly by this coming winter. It’s a little different with chickens because they grow so fast; some people may be raising fewer of them now because of the high cost of feed, and those that are available will be a little more costly because of the high cost of feed, so I don’t see poultry prices coming down in the short term. </p>
<p>It’s hard to see how grain prices can come down very much before next spring, when farmers will be making decisions about what & how much to plant; $8 corn and $16 soybeans are going to get a lot of farmers to plant a lot of corn and soybeans. So if it rains next year, feed grains could become much cheaper again, making it cheaper to feed hogs, cattle, and chickens. Hogs breed large litters and chickens pretty much never stop, and both grow pretty fast, so it’s pretty quick & easy to restore stocks of those critters if grain prices are more moderate next year. Cattle herds take a little longer to rebuild because it’s basically one calf at a time. So I’d say, depending on next year’s weather, pork and chicken prices could be pretty reasonable after spiking over the winter. If you like beef, though, now may be the time to enjoy it, because the price is almost certainly going to go up and might stay there for a while.</p>
<p>“in reality the kid whose family earns $150K also “costs more” than the kid whose family earns $1,500K, right?”</p>
<p>Yes, about $15k/year more. What about it? With ~80% yield on admits, Harvard is clearly doing a very good job figuring out how to make itself just affordable enough to the students it wants. Around half of the admitted students who say no to Harvard go to competitors who calculate financial aid the same way H does. So it is only losing a tiny number – maybe 200 per year, around 10% of the admits – to schools that may cost less, and we don’t know if finances were even the reason that all those kids said no. There are students who decide it’s very important to them to stay close to home, go where they will be a big fish in a small pond, etc.</p>
<p>“A lot of kids going to schools with a cost structure like Harvard whose families are in the full freight zone but who do not have longterm and significant wealth find the “cost” of sending their kid too great and instead send them elsewhere.”</p>
<p>In theory, there may be upper-middle-class, $250k families out there who don’t let their high-achieving kids apply to Harvard in the first place because of the expected cost, but in my experience, they are few and far between. I’ve never met any. So even if we assume that every Harvard refuser who doesn’t go to YPSM is in that bracket, we’re talking about no more than a couple of hundred kids a year globally, which is not what I consider “a lot.”</p>
<p>^ Hanna, you’re only looking at Harvard accepted applicants. A whole lot of kids in the income bracket we’re talking about here don’t apply. They come from families cognizant enough to scope out the costs of sending their kids to such schools before the applications go out. they don’t apply in the first place. Personally, I know many kids in this bucket. They go on merit elsewhere, do great and end up at Harvard, et al as grad students on stipends and tuition waived. :)</p>
<p>And that 80 percent yield is largely because of the vast and generous FA for what is now more than half the matriculating class, btw. </p>
<p>Finally, I don’t see why this model that I am suggesting could use some refining should be evaluated and judged on the basis of whether it is good for Harvard’s yield or not. Isn’t Harvard’s mission to educate as diverse and talented a group of young people as possible, do good in the world, promote “fairness”, etc? That should be the standard we are applying, not whether or not the current FA model helps these schools in the rankings game. Surely, they have more exalted objectives.</p>
<p>(I’ve been down to my last literal dollar and I can say with a clear conscience that there is absolutely no comparison. We aren’t millionaires, but there is no greater joy for my husband and me than when we made our daughter’s tuition payments because that’s what we worked and scrimped and prayed for when we actually were destitute.)</p>
<p>I am not poor. I am grateful. And better than that, so is my husband.</p>
<p>If you could see us every month when we pay the tuition, giggling like loons, you’d really wonder about us. But for people with no education, it does not get better than that. Which is not to say that we don’t look forward to the day when we can use that money for fun things, but there was such a long time that we didn’t think this would be possible. For us, it’s not an inconvenience it’s an achievement.</p>
<p>"(I’ve been down to my last literal dollar and I can say with a clear conscience that there is absolutely no comparison. We aren’t millionaires, but there is no greater joy for my husband and me than when we made our daughter’s tuition payments because that’s what we worked and scrimped and prayed for when we actually were destitute.)"</p>
<p>Wealth and poverty are all relative and highly subjective. We feel amazed and grateful to have what we have but we are also conscious that the wealth continuum is vast and we are very little fishes, actually.</p>
<p>We aren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. I work in Big Law. I know wealthy in terms of clients and lawyers. I’m not it.</p>
<p>But we do have enough to make those tuition payments. And to send the Precious Baby King to a very good high school next fall and pay for his music lessons and stuff. Of course, I worked long hours and my husband worked two jobs for years, but what does it matter if you get where you need to be?</p>
<p>“Personally, I know many kids in this bucket.”</p>
<p>Well, I guess you’re moving in a different demographic than I am. I know upper-middle-class valedictorians who don’t apply to HYPSM because they think they will be very happy at a public flagship, and their parents are fine with that. But I do not know ones who really think Harvard is where they fit, and their parents don’t let them apply.</p>
<p>“Isn’t Harvard’s mission to educate as diverse and talented a group of young people as possible, do good in the world, promote “fairness”, etc?”</p>
<p>Do you think the diversity and talent Harvard lacks is more kids from $250k-earning families? Do you think that’s the group facing the most serious “unfairness” as it strives to educate itself and do good in the world? We will have to agree to disagree. I don’t.</p>
<p>Totally agree with this. It’s not more than a few dozen schools, out of 3,000 or so in the nation, that meet 100% of need for 100% of their students. And even some big name, fancy schools don’t come close. Carnegie Mellon meets full need for only 31% of its students, and on average meets only 81% of need, which means most students with financial need are getting “gapped.” And I’m not talking about what they cover with grants; a big portion of the “aid” that CMU counts in those figures consists of loans and/or work-study, which is all really just self-help. NYU meets on average only 69% of need.</p>
<p>And at many public universities, it’s even worse. Ohio State, which is a better-than-average public university, meets full need for only 20% of its students, and on average meets only 60% of need. Michigan State, which I also consider a better-than-average public university, meets full need for only 21% of its students, and on average meets only 41% of need.</p>
<p>But once you get beyond the elite level, many private schools also have terrible FA. The University of Detroit Mercy, for example, meets full need for only 25% of its students, and on average meets just 59% of need.</p>
<p>If you’re poor, your best deal financially may be to go to one of the handful of schools that is need-blind in admissions and meets 100% of need . . . if you can get admitted. But the sad truth is, the vast majority of poor kids wanting to attend college will never be admitted to one of those schools, and most other schools are going to offer them financial aid that, by any objective measure, is inadequate. I truly admire kids who overcome those odds and find a way to make it.</p>
You know, it wasn’t terrible. We were afraid we would fail and it would have been for nothing. Honestly, I’m not sure if our marriage would have survived if we had to tell the kids that they couldn’t go to college. I’m not sure my husband would have lived through it. But when you never take for granted that YOUR KIDS will get a college education and the day comes that they really will, everything that came before is wiped away. It’s like holding the baby after a horrible labor.</p>
<p>Thank you. Only high school. But I read a lot and I am a volunteer literacy teacher for a population that many just want to disappear.</p>
<p>My husband is functionally illiterate, so getting the education for our kids was his life’s goal.</p>
<p>Romani, you make me think that when my kids are done it might be time for us to come up with a plan to do something for kids not our own who might benefit from some help. We can’t fund a full education, but we could certainly give something.</p>
<p>The point I’m trying to make is subtle and I don’t think I’m expressing it very well. I’m simply asking why there is the hard cutoff on FA at schools that meet 100 percent of need. Why not simply waive tuition entirely until a hard cutoff, then charge all students a percentage (which could be progressively increasing across income levels) of family income?</p>
<p>Why two cutoffs – one to set a threshold for paying no tuition and another to stipulate the income level at which an absolute full tuition is charged? Why not keep the low cutoff but then make tuition a progressive percentage across all income, just like taxes? </p>
<p>Would this not serve to vastly increase the coffers of these schools?</p>