How good is the financial aid at Duke?

objobs
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:06:09 +0000

warblersrule86:

Quote:
Originally Posted by objobs
Now if Duke were in the position of, say, Rice to offer “talent” based scholarships without sacrificing need-based aid, then the issue of prioritization would be moot. As you noted, Duke does not have the per capita endowment of Rice so it chooses to prioritize its merit and athletic scholarship recipients over its other students. But this doesn’t have to be the case. For example, Brown has a lower per capita endowment than Duke. Because Brown (due to its Ivy affiliation) does not privilege some of its students over others, it can provide superior FA than Duke.

Unfortunately, you don’t quite understand how merit scholarships at Duke work.

The merit scholarships at Duke are all funded by outside bodies. The AB Duke scholarship, for example, is funded by the Angier B. Duke Memorial, Inc. fund, which was established before west campus was even built. Duke usually picks the students for these scholars (though outside committees sometimes do, as with the Robertson), but it does not fund them. In other words, alumni and donors are giving Duke money for scholarships, and Duke chooses to use that money.



Then that means the Duke alumni/ae and donors do not have their priorities straight either.