<p>Working hard for good grades means being admitted to excellent schools. If merit money is not wasted on the well-to-do, then more is available to better meet the needs of the middle class.</p>
<p>I don’t think some government-formulated number can predict what you or I are or should be able to afford. Can this calculate the value of starting with a salary of $1000 with no family in an expensive city and working your way up, of having both parents work for a decade or two instead of one staying home to take care of the kids? There is no incentive in this funding model for parents to work hard, earn money and save.</p>
<p>“I don’t think some government-formulated number can predict what you or I are or should be able to afford. Can this calculate the value of starting with a salary of $1000 with no family in an expensive city and working your way up, of having both parents work for a decade or two instead of one staying home to take care of the kids? There is no incentive in this funding model for parents to work hard, earn money and save.”</p>
<p>You seem to be under the impression that if you have an EFC of say, 10k, and you go to a school with a cost of attendance of say, 50k, someone is handing you a check for 40k. That is NOT the case. You will get work study and federal loans, somewhat subsidized, to the tune of about 10k. that leaves 30k. SOME private colleges will find grants toward that. Many will offer you loans, which leave the student with huge debts - why thats better thabn parent loans toward the EFC, is not entirely clear. Some will not even offer you that. </p>
<p>If you have a higher income or savings, and a higher EFC, you generally have MUCH wider choices.</p>
<p>Brooklynborndad,</p>
<p>It depends which colleges you are talking about. Most, many (?) of the top schools fully fund the difference between EFC and tuition, no loans.</p>
<p>Some top schools that meet full need include small loans (~10% of COA) that are automatic, require no qualifying, are in the student’s name, and are paid back over many years. Such loans enable schools to support, e.g., ~10% more needy students.</p>
<p>Only a small number of colleges fund the full difference between EFC and tuition for all students, and only a handful do so without loans. </p>
<p>Too many high-income families presume that low-income families have it easy, thinking that most colleges offer financial aid that makes up the full difference between EFC and COA. Most do not. In fact, it is precisely the colleges that low-income students are most likely to attend that do not offer strong financial aid, and precisely the colleges that low-income students are unlikely to attend that can afford to offer generous aid to those few low-income students who do get in.</p>
<p>It is morally questionable in my mind for colleges that do not meet the full difference between EFC and COA to spend huge sums on merit scholarships. For universities that do meet full demonstrated need, the picture is less clear. </p>
<p>(Full disclosure: I received merit aid from a university that is need-blind and does meet the full gap between EFC and COA for every non-international student.)</p>
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<p>Most of the schools that promise to meet full need do include loans in the package.</p>
<p>A very small number of schools promise to meet full need without loans.</p>
<p>And most schools that promise to meet full need (with or without loans) are pretty dang selective, although they’re not all Ivy-league level selective.</p>
<p>While all Ivies claim to meet full need, not all of them claim to meet full need without loans.</p>
<p>Most of the schools that promise to meet full need use the CSS Profile or an institutional form in addition to the FAFSA. In many cases, the institutional EFC is far greater than the FAFSA EFC. So if the FAFSA EFC is unaffordable, then the FA package from a school that promises to meet full need without loans may still be unaffordable. [The Ivies appear to be an exception—many (not all) of them provide (substantial) need-based aid even for students from families making between $150K and $180K per year.]</p>
<p>The upshot of this is, if you’re a low or middle income student, expecting to make college affordable by simply getting into a school that promises to meet full need, you really need a better financial safety plan because many of these schools are reaches for the vast majority of their applicants!</p>
<p>chsowlflax17 has it exactly right. </p>
<p>The middle class doesn’t want to go into debt to educate its children, but somehow doesn’t see why kids from poor families shouldn’t be expected to do this. Add the fact that these kids are precisely those who are most likely to drop out of college–not always for academic reasons–and then are burdened with high student loans without the bump in salary a college degree would give them.</p>
<p>Why should the middle class have to pay for low-income students inability to graduate? For almost all top colleges, the middle class is shafted by financial aid and therefore many top students have only one option: merit aid at a public university. To abolish merit aid before fixing the issues with financial aid for ALL students would truly be a financial disaster for any middle class student trying to go to a top school.</p>
<p>And sometimes those same lower income students get financial need packages that are grants that don’t have to be paid back.</p>
<p>It’s not great when anyone has to assume loans for college, but it is often the reality for many of our students of all kinds of income levels.</p>
<p>So much to disagree with.</p>
<p>Why is it a national priority for all kids to go to college? At my high school there are kids with 1200 on their SAT’s headed for college. Why does the country need to make sure that kids who haven’t performed at one level be entitled to get an equal share of financial aid at the next level? As a country, we need more college graduates, not college participants. We need more engineers, not art history majors. </p>
<p>I agree that there is inequity and as a country it would be good to help the disadvanted who have college potential. However, I don’t buy the explanation that the only reason why richer kids value education more than poor kids is because they can affort test classes. Kids that go to better schools have a much better chance of completing high school and college.</p>
<p>I would argue that we need MORE merit aid to incetivize performance and not more need based aid that would incentivize poorness. </p>
<p>I would argue that we need more aid to go to kids who are in majors that the US needs and fewer that we don’t need.</p>
<p>It depends which colleges you are talking about. Most, many (?) of the top schools fully fund the difference between EFC and tuition, no loans</p>
<p>Not most. Not many. A few, unless you are restricting your universe to the Ivies. and not even all of them.</p>
<p>“Why is it a national priority for all kids to go to college?”</p>
<p>It isn’t. Its a national priority for all kids to have some post HS education or training, that can include a trade school or apprenticeship.</p>
<p>" At my high school there are kids with 1200 on their SAT’s headed for college. "</p>
<p>out of 1600 or 2400? </p>
<p>"I agree that there is inequity and as a country it would be good to help the disadvanted who have college potential. However, I don’t buy the explanation that the only reason why richer kids value education more than poor kids is because they can affort test classes. "</p>
<p>Who said they value education more? I think you mistyped here.</p>
<p>"I would argue that we need MORE merit aid to incetivize performance and not more need based aid that would incentivize poorness. " </p>
<p>Is there are many incentives to performance, most especially admission to selective schools, and todays existing merit aid. I doubt very much that people are trying to be poor in order to get need based aid. As many have discussed thats a pretty questionable strategy, given current aid policies.</p>
<p>"I would argue that we need more aid to go to kids who are in majors that the US needs and fewer that we don’t need. "</p>
<p>Which is an entirely seperate question. Although certainly the salaries different majors get has a big role in incentivizing major selection. But again, thats a huge and complex question, better for its own thread.</p>
<p>I’d say chsowlflax17 has a good point. The schools that rely most on merit aid are those schools that are maybe two tiers below the Ivies, like WashU or NYU. They have crappy need-based aid because they pour all of their money into merit aid so they can woo middle-class and upper-middle-class students away from Ivies. What would happen if these schools cut merit aid? Obviously, their cross-admits would go to better schools like the Ivies. But then the Ivies’ yields would increase and they would become more competitive. The people who would have gone to a second-tier school for the money would now go to a second-tier school because they couldn’t be admitted to the now-more-selective Ivies. In the end, you’d still have great people going to the top schools and great people going to second-tier schools. The only difference is that the upper-middle-class students going to these second-tier schools would be paying a much higher price, since they’d be getting less in need-based aid than they would have gotten in merit-based aid. </p>
<p>If, as chsowlflax17 asserts, the kind of achievements that result in high merit aid (e.g. national merit finalist status) are highly correlated with socio-economic class, then this system (with no merit-based aid) would be fairer. Yes, it’s more expensive for the middle-class and upper-middle-class, which sucks, but it’s also less expensive for the lower-middle-class who truly need the money! That’s why merit-based aid makes sense on an individual level, but not a systemic one. Devoting money to “merit”-based aid rewards those who have a better ability to pay, while devoting money to need-based aid helps those who have less of an ability to pay. Remember that most schools that offer a great deal of merit aid DO NOT guarantee 100% of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>“It is morally questionable in my mind for colleges that do not meet the full difference between EFC and COA to spend huge sums on merit scholarships.”</p>
<p>Schools naturally don’t care what we think, as long as apps are submitted. Everything they do is in their own self interest, centering on perpetuation and improvement, as it should be.</p>
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<p>Not if you knew what a fraud LLoyd Tacker really is. </p>
<p>He and his organization have been hired mercenaries for private interests such as CollegeNet and a number of schools. It is one of the most cynical charades in higher education. And, fwiw, I have been writing about him on CC from the day he published his first “book.” And I would have been hard-pressed to write a single positive word about him and his EC.</p>
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<p>How/why do morals play a factor? If the college is private, it’s their endowment money (donated by alums for the purposes of scholarships), so why can’t 't they choose to spend it how they want? If it’s a public college – many offer great deals to NMSF’s – just write your legislator and tell them to change the rules and eliminate merit money. Or, are you suggesting that such public colleges are being “immoral”?</p>
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<p>That makes your argument inconsistent. If the same college did not spend funds on merit money for a select few, they could increase the aid and the definition of “demonstrated need” for all.</p>
<p>“…the well-off will pay the price increase without complaining.” No they won’t. (She says brushing lint off her helicopter parent & company wing patch.)</p>
<p>What’s wrong with the colleges using some combo of merit aid and financial aid to encourage the students they want to attend? How did schools encourage kids to attend prior to merit aid? Seriously. Or maybe it didn’t matter when college didn’t cost the price of a house.</p>
<p>Do you really think people are going to pay 50k plus per year and not complain? Oh yeah, and then not say anything when their kiddo gets a crappy teacher who is condescending and doesn’t grade papers? You wonder why there is a helicopter parent revolution underway. Complainin’ here!</p>
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<p>Agree that morals have little to do with it, perhaps colleges could by charged with hypocrisy.</p>
<p>Does anyone honestly believe that merit aid money, if “freed up” would translate into financial aid money? Are you living in the land of unicorns and rainbows too? </p>
<p>Considering the vastly different interpretations we received about our financial situation from different schools, I greatly prefer merit aid awards because they are predictable, they seem more logical, and yes, they are based on merit. </p>
<p>What burns me far more are schools that pledge to meet 100% of full need and then make sure they find NO need, even though more than 20 other schools have.</p>