It’s a rhetorical question, but I’d like to know. I can’t logically explain why colleges feel we must play these games like a car dealership.
“Mr. Jones, this is the latest model higher education, complete with community involvement, study abroad, undergrad research, and student body diversity. What’s it gonna take to get dear daughter to take our acceptance letter today? What payment are you looking for? Yeah, I know that cost of attendance figure is a bit intimidating, but don’t worry! Nobody really pays that amount! Let me see what my financial aid office will do for ya. What’s her ACT score? Do you make less than ______? PERFECT! We can make you a great deal on this education!”
Does no-one else find this a bit ridiculous and disingenuous? Why the smoke and mirrors? Wouldn’t this whole process be a lot simpler and less stressful if colleges all set a REALISTIC cost of attendance, cut out all the nonsense and gave out financial aid based on actual need and maybe for the top 5% of the accepted class for merit and be done with it? FAFSA is a complete joke but yet is the holy writ for aid. A form that is supposed to determine your need doesn’t take debt into account but any asset counts against you. It would really be so much easier if we did away with the scholarship weekends and the pretentiousness that accompanies them in favor of a genuine sticker price for an education along with assistance for those in need and perhaps an award for a small number of high achievers.
Maybe I’m missing something, if so, please enlighten me. And no, it isn’t sour grapes. I myself, was a recipient of an award from one of the so-called scholarship weekends and DD qualifies for numerous merit packages. I just find the whole process very daunting, unnecessary, and wasteful.
College is one of the few places in our economy that practices price discrimination. Although it may be daunting, it is necessary and helpful. Without it, many would be shutout of the process completely.
So, what kind of debt should FAFSA take into account? Primary home mortgage debt? FAFSA will then need to start asking about primary home equity. Any kind of consumer debt? That’s a good benefit for those who can’t harness out-of-control credit card spending on goods that aren’t a necessity. The car loan for that BMW 7 series? The personal loan taken out to finance the vacation to Maui?
I don’t understand this rant at all, especially as it relates to competitive merit scholarships that require a scholarship weekend. What is pretentious about it? And why should merit scholarships go away? I can’t thibk of a good answer to either of those questions.
Have you not read the posts on here and the articles in other publications about “brag” scholarships? Money that schools basically give to well qualified but not exceptional kids as a sort of lure to get their attendance? I’m not saying merit aid should go away, I’m saying the term “merit” is being diluted and/or abused by some schools as a way to look like a better deal. And I didn’t mean this post to quite be a rant, (although I’ll admit it is, to a degree) I’d just like to understand the reasoning behind the tactics.
I think it is more like buying a house and the neighborhood having an admissions committee and they cut the price for the master gardener or the athlete who will compete on the community swim team.
That doesn’t happen, but the government may subsidize the mortgage for vets or low income buyers.
There shouldn’t be a need for aid. End all aid , lower cost for every young person. If someone wants to study, they’ll have to work part time and pay 20% of their income once they get fully employed after graduation, until debt is paid off. No freebies for anyone, no matter your parents are poor, middle, upper middle, wealthy, filthy rich, dead or deadbeat.
Good academics and other talents should get you admission to good colleges, good majors and good jobs but not free money.
Are you talking about the privates that have inflated their tuition just so that they can flatter applicants by giving them a $10k-15k per year merit scholarship? They send out a letter saying that they’re awarding you $40k or $60k of merit paid out over 4 years. The more modest-stats students and their parents are bedazzled and feel that they must enroll so as to not leave money on the table? It’s all just smoke and mirrors …a marketing ploy.
My daughter went to a school where I do think merit is awarded to attract good students. However, there are some full pay students so they must have figured out the ratio of those of us who just felt flattered to those who were willing to be full pay.
Athletic scholarships aren’t called ‘scholarships’ at all. They are officially Grants-in-Need. Nothing need based about them.
I feel the same! We are going through this with our only child this year and feel like the pricing at private schools is very clouded, there are so many personal variables that will affect what you pay regardless of academic metrics (so it’s hard to make comparisons to similar students that have gone before us). I’m afraid the options in the end will be the in-state public for $15K/yr or the various privates for $35-$45K/yr and nothing in between. But we truly won’t know until the process plays itself out.
I understand what the Op is saying. We were told this by friends when applying to colleges. This is especially true of the private Lacs. Lots of comparing numbers with each program to get our best deal. Even some negotiating to get sa better overall package. Good thing my daughter was in demand. ?
Colleges do give out aid based on actual need. They just don’t agree with people who think they should give up their assets so families can protect theirs. They aren’t in the business of underwriting people’s lifestyles either so they don’t care about debt unless it’s unexpected medical bills.
Merit does seem to go to the students with the highest stats, so they have more choices than kids with lower stats. Colleges can’t win though. If they offer scholarships that are more than the guaranteed merit families don’t like it because they’re competitive. When colleges do offer the same ~$20k/year to a lot of good, but not great, students they’re accused of playing games. I get it that if colleges limited merit to only the top 5% of kids the high stats kids would get more, but just because families with high stats kids think only the top 5% of students are worthy of merit aid it doesn’t mean colleges agree.
It’s disappointing, I know, to have to tell our kids that some schools are just not affordable for our family. For most of us it’s not the first time that something they wanted was out of our budget. But it’s not the responsibility of private colleges to make costs affordable for my family. I don’t gripe to Prius that the car my daughter really, really wants is out of our price range so why don’t they do something about it. I redirect her focus to the cars we can afford. Choosing colleges is no different. The cost is what it is and if it’s out of our range we move on.
I agree with your premise; I think you missed the aim of mine. I like transparency. I don’t like being told a COA number that’s not reeaaallly the number, it’s full sticker price and 99% of people don’t pay full sticker price and there’s a lot of negotiation and variables that go into the final number. I like the way the University of Alabama and Millsaps and some other colleges handle merit aid: what’s your scores and GPA, here’s your merit number. You can get further aid beyond that based on merit, need, etc. but here at least is a number that you know you can deduct from the start.
And yet the few colleges that tried to lower tuition and eliminate the scholarships to most policies didn’t fare so well. The reason for the high tuition high aid model is that is seems to work.
@austinmshauri… Well yes they do. Mostly small lacs. We sent better offers of merit and aid to competing schools of interest. They matched and then added funds to get my daughter. They actually wanted to see the offers first to make sure they were real. Some schools there was a $8,000 difference. We also asked and got a housing credit since they couldn’t give more merit but had money else where to give.
So to me that’s negotiating. ?. Just like buying a car. Now Michigan where my son is… … No negotiating… Lol…