<p>It’s pretty clear that even need-blind colleges can’t let their FA budgets fluctuate wildly, but I wonder if they can’t keep the “need for need” stable in more subtle ways: </p>
<p>by having admissions targets for other categories: URMs, legacies, internationals, geography, public/private school attendance; </p>
<p>by relying on the correlation between test scores and income; and </p>
<p>by just monitoring all of the above year-to-year and making adjustments as needed. For example, I don’t think that any school is probaby truly need-blind in the sense that they’d admit all the superbly qualified international students that apply (many of whom would have high need).</p>