<p>My daughter will likely get high merit aid. I am not rich, nor am I poor. What I am is a parent who, from Day 1 has encouraged, supported, and prioritized academic achievement.
And I did it in ways any family can, regardless of how little money/advantages they have.</p>
<h1>1 I removed TVs from the house.</h1>
<h1>2 We read together as a family – not as an assigned chore, but for fun (which quickly became addictive).</h1>
<h1>3 I set high expectations and made it my business to help my child meet them.</h1>
<h1>4 I made personal sacrifices, focusing mostly on supporting my child’s academic pursuits rather than on my social life, hobbies, or next new car.</h1>
<p>I never paid a dime for any test prep services. My daughter used the Princeton Review series, all of which are widely available at local libraries.
She has worked her tail off and made sacrifices of her own to achieve the stats that will earn her significant merit money. There’s not a darn thing wrong with this system. School is about academic achievement. If you want to be rewarded, get in the game. And you don’t need to be well-off to do that. Just willing to sacrifice and work hard. anybody can do that, regardless of background, race, or financial situation.</p>
<p>The steepness of tuition increases is not that mysterious. Referencing an article in the NYTimes, “In Twist on Tuition Game, Popularity Rises With Price”- Dec 12, 2006…,</p>
<p>this article documented how many boards of trustees at colleges, which had lower tuition relative to their peers, raised tuition in order to increase sagging number of applicants. It worked. “Applicants had apparently concluded that if the college costs more, it must be better.” According to this article it applied to colleges such as Ursinus, Notre Dame, Bryn Mawr, Rice, University of Richmond, and Hendrix. Other schools are mentioned, (and I think it must be widespread and still happening). Institutions watch one another. How else do tuition and fees end up being so incredibly close across a wide swath of colleges? They justify it by saying they turn around and feed the increases into financial aid. Since it is clear that merit aid is on the DECREASE across the the country lately, the inescapable conclusion is that some tuition increases are simply a redistribution of wealth. Colleges raise tuitions to stay competitive with other colleges in their class, not always because they need the money. And it’s paid for by those who can pay even if they can’t fund their retirements anymore. Diverting merit aid and increasing tuition are two sides of the same coin- it’s all about redistribution.</p>
<p>We never paid for test prep, and we are a middle class family. Make too much to get a full ride, but not enough to pay the costs of either a state or private at 100%. </p>
<p>It is true that those students who understand the system better of how to navigate college admissions and financial aid get advantages along the way, which is much like real life. </p>
<p>In terms of playing the class warfare game with college tuition, it is a loser game. The rates of tuition increases have gone up faster than inflation, and most people can’t afford the cost outright without pain to pay for 1 year of college, much less 4 (or 5, or more).</p>
<p>It likely wouldnt attract the Justice Department interest. But just in case, they could get a letter from the Justice Department that its okay to do it, or ask congress to pass a bill exempting them from antitrust scrutiny for this narrow cause.</p>
<p>Its a worthy cause. I would much rather see ALL the aid going to those who need it. The problem is that many colleges use merit aid to attract bright students and they fear all of them would head to the Ivy League if its gone. Or use USNWR rankings even more than they do now. Its a conundrum.</p>
<p>As for the issue of what you earn where…its true NYC has higher taxes, but they arent paying so much more in taxes than the rest of the country to suggest that 300k equals 150k elsewhere. The cost of housing is a factor however. </p>
<p>Colleges and FAFSA are well equipped to measure cost of living in their analysis of what is needed. </p>
<p>But its very true that the majority of merit aid scholarships often go to people who don’t need the money. </p>
<p>A solution might be to continue merit aid, but make it ALL need based, that way, people can get rewarded for doing well, but its based on need and not on “entitlement by SAT”. I dont know what the threshold ought to be but it seems to me that people with income’s north of 150k and living in 500k and higher valued homes may not need the aid, or nearly as much aid, as someone not in that category. The Ivy League has a lot of experience with this and perhaps they can share their experience with these statistics. </p>
<p>What I dont want to do is to harm schools that are second and third tier schools who might otherwise attract kids with SATs above 1400. (Mostly second tier and only a few third tiers do that now.)</p>
<p>Although I was a recipient of significant merit aid, I agree with chsowlflax17 that on the macro level merit aid is problematic.</p>
<p>Need-based aid enables people to go to college. Too often, merit aid only changes the college at which they enroll.</p>
<p>That was true for me, at least: My family was prepared to pay full college tuition without any financial aid. Yet I was offered a full-ride merit scholarship, which was compelling enough that it changed where I chose to enroll.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m very grateful for the opportunities the merit aid has given me and the burden it has lifted off of my family. But I’m someone who has already had a lot of educational and economic privilege in life, and I question whether easing my / my family’s burden should have been an institutional priority.</p>
<p>There are still a good number of people in the United States who choose not to go to college – any college – because they can’t afford it. As long as that remains true, I’ll remain somewhat uncomfortable with merit aid. There is probably a place for it, at least at institutions that also do a good job with need-based aid. But in general I’d rather see the money redirected to need-based aid to help out middle-class families whose aid packages aren’t currently meeting their true level of need.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that need-based aid is still reflecting merit: you have to get into the university, and in most places that have the resources to be need-blind, that truly is an accomplishment to be proud of.</p>
<p>If they all went completely need based and had an adjustment to factor in the differences between the cost of living in one area v. another I would be fine with this. I have done a quick EFC and what I am told we can afford v. what we can actually afford is about 10-K per year different-and that is the government one-the institutional one is off by closer to 20K.</p>
<p>I have a real issue with not rewarding my son because he has some natural ability coupled with a LOT of hard work on his part. If he could shoot a basketball it’s OK to give him a scholarship but not if he excels academically? </p>
<p>The other thing I am seeing as his friends start the process of looking at schools is that friends of his who are athletes are already being contacted by coaches at any number of schools, including ones that only offer need-based aid-with the understanding that they’ll “work something out” both with admissions and the financial aid office if they come to their school. I don’t buy for one second that all these school who don’t offer athletic scholarships figure out a way to in essence give them.</p>
<p>“on the macro level merit aid is problematic.”</p>
<p>I agree with this. My D was offered full rides at many colleges. In addition to the money offered, lots of marketing tools were used to attract her. Unfortunately, those were all large universities and my daughter worked hard to go to to a great LAC. Her no-merit LAC offered a good financial aid package for our middle-class family. Now she can go to a school she wants for an affordable price. I think that a worthy goal is for everyone to go to the best school for them at an affordable price. I’m economically dumb, but if changing the merit aid picture helps with this, I’m all for it.</p>
<p>Everyone’s OK with astronomically increasing tuition 60K, 75K, 100K, as long as the family makes more than 150K? Diversity is only worth so much. The 150K to 300K family is getting priced out. There will be a revolt: Ivies or Merit Aid. We’re in that range and my junior D’s list starts with Ivies (worth every penny), then OOS Honors, then top 30 schools that offer some merit (to offset the tuition increases) then pure need-based schools.</p>
<p>Your post is exactly what causes the tuition inflation (although I’m sure you didn’t intend it that way). Similar to you, many other people think the Ivies are “worth every penny”. Many others think the same way about Emory, Vandy, USC, Wake Forest, Amherst, Swathmore, Grinnell… My point is that since there are literally hundreds of thousands of folks that think that way – and only a couple of thousand admission slots – no revolt will occur.</p>
<p>As I said: individually, merit aid makes a ton of sense. It also makes sense for public school, provided the school isn’t cheap enough already for that to be an overriding factor. For individuals, it would be heart-wrenching for there not to be any merit aid available. For individuals, it would seem like the cards are stacked against them if they couldn’t get merit aid. But institutionally, you don’t do things because there are individuals with need, you do things because there are large segments of the population with need. My real problem is that state schools are no longer so affordable that anyone can go: back before my state school was giving merit scholarships, my mom didn’t bother applying to Harvard, despite them getting in touch with her (she played softball and had high scores/grades), because she knew she couldn’t pay (this was before need-blind admissions), whereas at the state school, she was able to live with a roommate off campus, work and graduate without any debt.</p>
<p>That’s not really possible at that same school anymore. If it were, these schools still would pick up some of the more talented local students without offering any aid. Maybe they’d still have a compelling reason to offer merit aid for OOS students. But more importantly than the top is the average, it seems: as a nation, we should ensure that anyone with the qualifications and desire should be able to go to, and graduate from, a university. Right now, community colleges are sort of filling in the gap, but that means whether a low-income student can afford a quality education is dependent on them either being the top academically, or living in a district that emphasizes community colleges, which for a large segment of society isn’t necessarily the case. And that doesn’t count the two years they’d need to spend on university, which could be out of their grasp in terms of affordability. If cutting merit aid would help ensure that qualified students have somewhere affordable to go, then maybe merit aid should be cut.</p>
<p>A minor point: don’t cut merit aid, just move that money to the need aid pool, so that no money is wasted on the truly well off, and college is affordable for the middle class.</p>
<p>Grinnell offers a lot of merit aid so we are looking at that. So does USC. We wouldn’t be looking at them if they didn’t offer some merit. Let the other people pay full price for the non-ivies. If they engage in steep tuition inflation they should offer merit not just need based aid to offset it.</p>
<p>And why should the ivies (and only the ivies?) be exempt from your notion that schools that engage in steep tuition inflation should also be obligated to offer merit?</p>
<p>I ask since an earlier post of yours indicated that the ivies “are worth every penny” of their tuition which does indeed have “steep tuition inflation”, but no merit aid.</p>
<p>For a student on financial aid at a school that meets full need, the tuition list price is irrelevant. As labor-intensive costs rise, tuition can be increased even more to cover increased aid to needy students; the well-off will pay the price increase without complaining.</p>
<p>“The reason for the high EFC could be a non-contributing divorced parent, or the family’s assets may be illiquid.”</p>
<p>Well that mainly argues for a more sophisticated view of need than the current FAFSA. CSS, or simply a qualitative discussion of real world obstacles. </p>
<p>" Or, even if the family could write an annual $30K check, perhaps a rational economic analysis suggests that a good state school at $12K is a better value than the $30K private. "</p>
<p>Well thats their choice. Should all options be made equally affordable? Perhaps, but merit aid is probably an inefficient, and even more so, ineffective way to do that.</p>
<p>The real argument FOR merit aid is what you said earlier. It helps (like “holistic” admissions policies) to let colleges shape their classes to what they want and need - whether its higher stats, different mixes of majors, different mixes of EC’s, or diversity, geographic, cultural, gender (yay RPI!) or whatever.</p>
<p>I agree that that the average is more important than the top. But in many, many places community colleges are * not * filling that gap if you look at graduation rates (even graduation rates for 2-year AA degrees) particularly for low-income students. And many third and fourth tier directional state U’s also have really bad graduation rates—particularly for low-income students. Although teasing apart the roles that “academic preparedness” and “financial hardship” play in causing individual students’ failure to graduate in a timely fashion is a difficult task, the problem is NOT always one of whether the student is adequately prepared academically to do college-level work.</p>
<p>Here on CC we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the problems that high achieving, upper middle class students face affording private colleges with COA of $50K and (unaffordable) EFC of $30K.</p>
<p>We forget or ignore the situation faced by many more B,B+ high school students with low to lower middle incomes who will struggle mightily to afford the COA of their local directional state U since Pell+Staffords will not cover the costs in many states. And these students will often struggle to pay for six or more years of college since they are much, much less likely to graduate on time than the high achieving, upper middle class student.</p>
<p>Does this guy work for the loan industry? If there is no merit aid only the rich and poor, the best savers and those who take on a lot of debt can attend college. Working hard for good grades means little then.</p>