How good is the financial aid at Duke?

[SBR]

<p>objobs:</p>

<p>Your whole argument regarding Brown centers on their commitment to socioeconomic diversity which is without a doubt better than Duke’s. But I would submit that endowment is a significant factor when schools implement FA. Brown (and Ivy League schools in general) tend to be anomalies in terms of FA. Looking at a list of schools ranked by endowment, there are many non-ivy schools who have greater endowments but worse FA programs. In this case, I would argue that Duke’s stance is actually more conventional Brown and that the trend is endowment size is generally a good predictor of FA (outside of the Ivies that is).</p>

<p>Edit: slow to see replies again</p>

<p>^ I would say that columbia’s FA is only slightly better than Duke’s and in terms of commitment far from Brown’s level despite an endowment of more than $7Billion. </p>

<p>From their FA website:</p>

<ul>
<li>The median income of families receiving Columbia Grant is $83,487, but many families who earn as much as $200,000 a year can qualify for financial aid.</li>
<li>Parents earning $60,000 or less a year contribute $0 towards their children’s Columbia education.</li>
<li>Parents earning between $60,000 and $100,000 have substantially lowered contribution requirements.</li>
<li>Parents earning over $100,000 still can qualify for significant financial aid from Columbia.</li>
</ul>

<p>The only significant thing I’d say that is better than Duke is that Columbia doesn’t give out loans. In that respect that extra couple of billion really helps. </p>

<p>Penn’s FA however, is very good, definitely better than Duke’s. </p>

<p>As for graduate students. I have to say that I don’t believe that they factor into FA all that much. A large part of many graduate students’ stipends actually come from their PIs many of whom pay for their graduate students from their own funding sources.</p>

[objobs]

<p>

@SBR

objobs:</p>

<p>Your whole argument regarding Brown centers on their commitment to socioeconomic diversity which is without a doubt better than Duke’s. But I would submit that endowment is a significant factor when schools implement FA. Brown (and Ivy League schools in general) tend to be anomalies in terms of FA. Looking at a list of schools ranked by endowment, there are many non-ivy schools who have greater endowments but worse FA programs. In this case, I would argue that Duke’s stance is actually more conventional Brown and that the trend is endowment size is generally a good predictor of FA (outside of the Ivies that is).

</p>

<p>Among Duke’s non-Ivy peers, Rice and Vanderbilt have smaller endowments but as good if not better FA. Admittedly, Rice’s per capita endowment is higher than Duke’s but Duke’s per capita endowment is higher than Vanderbilt’s. So Brown is not that much of an “anomaly.”</p>

<p>And for the record, I am not the one who’s constantly trying to compare Duke to the (non-HYP) Ivies. It is YOU Duke students and alumni/ae who seek and aspire to the ever elusive Ivy-level status. Like I said, “you cannot have your cake and eat it too.”</p>

<p>

@SBR

As for graduate students. I have to say that I don’t believe that they factor into FA all that much. A large part of many graduate students’ stipends actually come from their PIs many of whom pay for their graduate students from their own funding sources.

</p>

<p>Tell that to the resident expert on graduate education.</p>

[SBR]

<p>I didn’t say Duke’s FA is better across the board. I merely said that it’s a trend that Duke is part of. A few examples doesn’t exactly refute the trend.</p>

[objobs]

<p>

@SBR

objobs:</p>

<p>Your whole argument regarding Brown centers on their commitment to socioeconomic diversity which is without a doubt better than Duke’s.

</p>

<p>

@SBR

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.

</p>

<p>You probably won’t quit until you have the last word. So I’ll let you have the last word. I hereby rest my case (for the time being at least). It was fun. Talk to you later, maybe… ;)</p>

[SBR]

<p>What I said is actually not mutually exclusive. </p>

<p>I never doubted that Brown has such a commitment. That’s wonderful for Brown. But the fact of the matter is that apparently it’s not costing Brown much to make that commitment at all. If Duke spends $86M a year and you still think it’s insufficient (with its lower standards) to achieve socioeconomic diversity, then how much more would Brown have to commit (with its drastically higher standards) if your vision of socioeconomic diversity is achieved? This calls into question how much that commitment is making its intended impact at the present time. </p>

<p>You seem to at least imply in your posts that such a commitment is automatically good for socioeconomic diversity, I’m observing that in the example that you set forth of a university with such a commitment, the figures make it unlikely that a significant impact can be observed at least from a cursory quantitative perspective.</p>

<p>Edit: au revoir then, it was a pleasure</p>

[bluedog]

<p>

Penn’s FA however, is very good, definitely better than Duke’s.

</p>

<p>Question: is there actually data out there showing which schools have better FA? Or is this all from anecdotal evidence? Or are we looking at total financial aid given/average grants and loans per student? I don’t know if that’s a fair comparison as there’s not a perfect overlap between student bodies…although seeing such a comparison is probably the best we’ve got, so it would be interesting to see how Duke fares on that. </p>

<p>I’m honestly curious because it would be awesome so be able to plug in numbers and see which schools give better aid. I think Princeton has a calculator or something. Perhaps certain schools are better for low-income while others are better for middle-income. Anecdotally, I know at least three people at Duke who chose Duke over UPenn because of better aid. Admittedly, this was a few years ago. And probably others chose UPenn over Duke but I just didn’t know since I didn’t go to UPenn. So, it’s conceivable those three were anomalies. Duke, for me, was quite generous with FA and I’m from a middle-class family. It was considerably cheaper than Michigan was even with Michigan’s $10,000 merit scholarship offer…Hey, and Michigan has a $6B endowment! I realize it has many more students…</p>

[SBR]

<p>I think Penn’s website has a chart that gives average awards based on income bracket and how many students of the incoming class fell in that bracket and received aid. </p>

<p>Here it is: [A</a> Look at the Facts, Comparing Penn’s Cost](<a href=“Submit My Documents | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn Srfs”>Submit My Documents | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn Srfs)</p>

<p>Apparently they have no loans too which is also a plus.</p>

<p>But yeah, Duke has been pretty generous to me too so I have nothing to complain about really.</p>

[plumazul]

<p>@bluedog, both Kiplinger and USN&WR rank such things (ranked by ave. cost). In the USN 2010 “National Universities” section the rankings were …</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Columbia and
Dartmouth</p>

<p>after that there is a steep increase of several thousand $/year …</p>

<p>For LACs, the best were Williams, Amherst and Pomona …</p>

<p>edit – I believe Columbia tweaked their system AFTER the data used by USN for this issue … so they now might be higher ranked.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>“If you can’t afford a school you get into ED, you can pull out.”</p>

<p>This is correct. Duke uses the Common Application. Here is the Common Application ED rule:

Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment.

</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It doesn’t say you have to ask permission of the school to pull out. Consider the alternative, that attendance is somehow compelled, and then the student is expelled when the EFC cannot be paid. It just doesn’t happen.</p>

[bluedog]

<p>Found this:</p>

<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: What’s the Bottom Line?](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php?sort=b.range_3]Project”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php?sort=b.range_3)</p>

<p>Don’t know how sound their methodology is, but here it is:</p>

<p>Net cost amounts based on Income level;
$20,000 $40,000 $60,000 $80,000 $120,000 $160,000 $200,000</p>

<p>UPenn $2,500 / $5,644 /$13,394 / $19,195 / $35,016 /$53,033 / $53,250 </p>

<p>Duke $3,700 /$3,700 /$13,861 / $20,717 / $38,673 /$53,390 /$53,390</p>

<p>UPenn advantage (+) or disadvantage (-) in dollar amounts
$1,200 / -$1,944 / $467 / $1522 / $3657 / $357 / $140</p>

<p>as percentage of income
6.0% / -4.9% / 0.8% / 1.9% / 3.0% / 0.22% / 0.0074%</p>

<p>Looks pretty similar to me…Based on those results, looks like UPenn is better with super low income, Duke is better with low middle, Penn is ever so slightly better with middle, Penn is better with upper middle, and they are the same with super upper income. But the differences really aren’t that stark…Thought it was interesting.</p>

<p>Yale and Harvard destroy everybody according to this data (even Stanford and Princeton). I’ve heard people get quite good packages from Stanford and Princeton so perhaps this data isn’t that reliable…</p>