How good is the financial aid at Duke?

SBR
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:17:35 +0000

^ What’s with all that personal hate for me plumazul? Did I kill your puppy or something? I clearly said that I didn’t know the specifics of your case and responded to the other poster’s implication that Duke likes to conceal the realities of their FA system.

1) Knowing about something and making an informed decision is not synonymous. Since you knew about Duke’s FA and its implementation you must have some idea that there’s a possibility that you might consider the costs too high. Yet you still applied after know all that information. That means you tacitly agreed that the risk is worth the attempt. It didn’t turn out the way you hoped so you complained about it on CC?

Also, when they said they’d make it affordable, that’s a pretty blanket statement. Did they give you specific estimates? Did they give you ballpark figures? Did they ask to see tax forms and asset declarations? Or did you just took it at face value? What if a BMW salesman told you he’d make a 7-series affordable? Would you have expected him to give it to you for the price of a camry?

Finally, how do you know there’s been no progress on socioeconomic diversity? Because you thought the price was too high? Because the yield is low? Did you take a look at the student body’s statistics? Or did you look at the Chronicle’s average student family income of $250K and thought that must be everyone?

2) Taking people at their word is a great attribute but ultimately it’s up to you to make your own choices. As for staying/being a top tier school, I think FA-wise, they are doing the best they can and will continue to improve. I just don’t understand your fixation with the whole “rich kids” thing. Because they are rich, they are somehow stigmatized? Because rich kids automatically means a school will go down?

3) OK, I will say that FA has some influences on student life, my bad.

4) Yeah I’m not perfect, I have in the past made judgments and subjective opinions about Duke applicants (whether or not they matriculate). But that won’t stop me from pointing out that such comments should ideally have no place in rational discussions, especially when they are irrelevant to the subject at hand.

So I’ll ask again, what’s with all the hate? Is it because you think I’m a “rich kid?” (which I’m decidedly not)

Edit: would also like to address objob’s assertion about Brown’s commitment to socioeconomic diversity:



objobs:

Duke has a $4.4B endowment; Brown’s is only $2B. So percentage-wise, Brown is spending about twice as much of its endowment on FA as Duke. Which school do you think demonstrates a higher commitment to affordability and socioeconomic diversity?



Percentage-wise then Duke spends a lot more of its endowment than harvard what does that say about Harvard’s commitment? In fact, given Harvard’s endowment, they should just make tuition free for all students period. In the end, the truth is that Duke spends more on FA than Brown, so from a quantitative point of view, Duke’s FA gives more aid than Brown’s FA.

Also, the fact that Brown has such a commitment yet spends less than Duke for a similar student body size is actually indicative of the realities of the “socioeconomic diversity” at Brown.