<p>Funny, from a college’s perspective, especially schools that are considered top notch but not an ivy, I would think that merit aid would be even more essential than ever. This way they can
Get top notch kids that they might not have attracted, and
Raise their average SAT scores,which intern attracts even more top notch kids.</p>
<p>This is what Wash U St. Louis did for years, and it really paid off for them.</p>
<p>What financial aid gives is more needy kids. From a purely selfish, business viewpoint, merit aid is much more appealing, which is why schools won’t get rid of it.</p>
<p>My college senior received lots of merit money from several colleges. But one school in particular “Sewanee” was not generous, indicating that they believe loans should be a large part of the equation. As a “pay go” fiscal conservative, I strongly disagreed. Isn’t that idea what is getting our country and many families into financial trouble? True, not all families can even afford a state school and they may need loans. But if I had a choice of a very good, affordable college/university or a very good, expensive college/university where we would not need loans, I opted for the latter.</p>
<p>I think its fiscally conservative to get the best deal you can get. I don’t think “other people” are paying for their education. Colleges make their own calculations on “value”. To some, they will value athletes, others thespians, still others students who score well on SATs and others on NMSF. </p>
<p>Essentially the colleges have very high fixed costs and low variable costs (i.e. how much extra does it cost a college to add an extra student). The airlines are a similar industry and both have similar bizarre pricing methodologies. If I get a great deal on an airline seat, should I feel bad because someone else is paying my way? If I should I don’t. I learn the rules and plan accordingly.</p>
<p>Merit aid provides some semblance of making the higher education system not resemble the classic model by Marx. Imagine if we applied the “only-need-based” principle to other more importnat areas in life, starting with the essentials - food, clothing, and shelter and made the cost of these entities primarily dependent on the recipient’s need and worthiness. Add employment to this set, where jobs are offered to those that are qualified, but salaries are based on their finances, and you can transition the rich “full pay” students to “no pay” employees. </p>
<p>One only hopes that the tier 2 universities are not foolish enough to fall for this and hand over any tools they have to influence the students they get to the elite schools.</p>
<p>@speihei and Samurai
I don’t think that your analogy is valid. No one is forcing you to fill out a FAFSA or CSS Profile. While it might be problematic if the car dealership would not sell me the car unless I showed them how much I made the last year before taxes, I wouldn’t have a problem if the car dealership just said “Well the car’s $200,000 but I could let you set up a repayment plan and offer you a bit of a discount.”</p>
<p>I am confused by your last post. Can you elaborate?</p>
<p>I have no problem filling out a FAFSA or CSS PROFILE - not sure what you mean.</p>
<p>My point in the post (that I think you are referencing) is that the price is so elastic, that the college financial aid office doesn’t let the student know until well into the process. This is changing - which is good.</p>
<p>But Samurai, the price actually ISN’T necessarily that elastic and unknown. The richest students don’t even fill out financial aid forms, and (in theory) middle class students don’t have to fill them out, either. If you want the college to just name a price, they happily will: sticker price, about $50K/year or $200K for four years. The financial aid is entirely optional. And if you’re asking them to give you a discount on the sticker price, then you should not complain that they want to see your financial information. If the ambiguity of the price really upsets you, then you’re free to pay sticker.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s great if you can find out what the cost of college will be earlier, but I still maintain that it’s unfair to suggest, as speihei did, that colleges are doing something improper/almost illegal by offering need-based aid.</p>
<p>“If you walked into a car dealership and said, “I want the red one,” and they replied, “Sure, tell me how much you have in the bank, how much you make, how much your children make, and how much they have in the bank, then I’ll tell you what the car costs,” 99% of you would walk out and call the cops. Yet nobody thinks twice about that pricing model when it comes to college.”</p>
<p>The implication was that it’s a bad, possibly illegal pricing model, because the dealership refuses to give you the price until you give them your financial information. I was just pointing out that you don’t HAVE to give that information in order to pay for college; it’s merely optional.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I generally agree with you that most middle applicants will not pay sticker price, but will apply for financial aid and will decide where to matriculate in large part based on how much financial aid they receive from each college to which they are accepted. Practically speaking, then, many applicants will have to make difficult decisions about which colleges to apply to without knowing how much aid they will receive from each college. But since it’s not required to apply to financial aid, I don’t think it’s fair to insinuate that the pricing model is improper.</p>
<p>If you can afford to pay full price, no problem. </p>
<p>Pretty much everyone else is going to want to see what the numbers are before turning in their admissions decision.</p>
<p>If the student is smart enough to get into college, let’s assume he/she won’t make a buying decision until he knows what is offered to him.</p>
<p>If you opt to not provide financial docs, then the listed price is it. If you choose to provide this information, the price can be negotiated by playing along…which the vast majority of the student applicants do in the current system.</p>
<p>In post #94 your last paragraph serves to make my point (prior to the last sentence.)</p>
<p>Why I believe that there is borderline illegal activity is because the de facto cost of attendance is the discounted price that the vast majority of students pay. It is a little misleading to say that students and their families can opt to pay full price and that nobody is forcing people to apply for financial aid; that’s just not the reality of how college pricing/payment functions, especially at the top level. </p>
<p>Where I believe things get problematic is when groups of schools (and we can use the Ivies as an example) engage in price fixing collusion - a covenant not to compete - by agreeing that no merit aid will be awarded by any of their group. (And to keep the discussion in line with the OP, the suggestion that other schools make this agreement is why we’re having this conversation.) Once providers of good or services agree that they will not compete, the presumption is that the consumer suffers.</p>
<p>Pwoods, you’re going to do well at Columbia, just reading your posts here indicates you have a good mind and express yourself well. I wish you the best.</p>
<p>@SamuraiLandshark - why does the site say you have over 2 BILLION posts?</p>
<p>Of course the non-merit schools might collude and campaign against the concept of merit schools. They’re unhappy that their potential students are getting “picked off.” </p>
<p>However, they’re being short-sighted. The ones who are being picked off probably can’t afford the non-merit schools because incomes are too high and parents can’t/won’t pay. So, would the non-merit schools prefer that these kids go nowhere?</p>
<p>Keep in mind that some “affluent” kids seek merit schools because their NCP incomes are too high, but their NCPs won’t pay their fair share for college. These kids have few other options other than to seek big merit schools.</p>
<p>That’s true but schools who eliminate merit aid often increase their financial cut-offs for need based (institutional) aid and/or guarantee to limit/eliminate loans from FA packages. Some don’t require NCP info at all. I think that if the “merit” money game wasn’t played by the schools for the rankings boost it gives, all schools and students would actually benefit in the long run. There would be no need to inflate costs and discount which actually discourages their applicant pool. </p>
<p>Federal surveys from 2009 applicants show that more than half of parents/students look only at COA when deciding which schools to apply to(…obviously the non-CC’ers). Too often these big merit scholarships turn out to be “teasers” for kids by coupling them with high gpa requirements and the merit aid goes away. This leaves the student and his parents at a school that may not have been the best choice without that enticement and we all know that merit aid for transfers is small and difficult to find. At least if need-based aid changes, it’s more likely that some of the additional income/assets can be allocated to cover the difference.</p>
<p>One theme in the posts I’ve read here is the “mystery” of how much FA schools award and what tuition increases will be. I think the College Navigator website is very good at sorting that out, and will become even better once the schools are required to report this data by family income level. So many people use the College Board data and never bother to use the federal site! Please offer this link in your posts to students as it contains much more useful information for them to consider, including retention and grad rates:</p>
<p>Full price subsidize merit aid, as they should?</p>
<p>Normally when I make a charitable donation, I get to determine where it goes. If I’m going to be required to pay my child’s tuition plus someone else’s, I would like to get to determine which other child I am going to help. (You could put together a packet like they do when you adopt a third world child to clothe and feed – with pictures. I’d also like a letter from the student every month thanking me for my contribution – along with photos and a copy of his/her report card.)</p>
<p>^^ I don’t see merit aid as a charitable contribution and I think your analogy is flawed. The recipient of the merit aid could be someone who raises the academic level of the institution, or whatever else the institution valued that was lacking in the non-merit-aided population. It’s give-and-take, and no thank you notes are needed.</p>
<p>
Agree. And hope the merit schools aren’t naive or PC to fall for this. The elites schools, as a group, don’t need to offer merit to attract the best, so they sanctimoniously dropped it, as a group.</p>
Cute, AMarkov</p>