Is it? I cannot think of a single college for which this would be true.
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I actually think it is often true that many families don’t pay full COA, but not sure I would characterize it as ‘few.’ The average discount rate for US colleges was 56.1% for incoming first years in 2023 (NACUBO study of the 325 colleges they track.) Annual NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study Finds Financial Aid Awards and Undergraduate Enrollment on the Rise at Private Colleges and Universities
Even for Holy Cross it looks to be the case that over half the undergrads are not paying full COA (but again, I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘few’ that are paying full COA.) Per the 2023 CDS, there were 3,417 undergrads and 1,417 received need based aid. Another 342 with no need received non-need based aid. So that’s 1,759 students not paying full COA, which is just over 50% of undergrads. Then throw in another 213 athletes who received scholarships and it’s even a higher percentage not paying full COA (although for the athletes there could be some overlap with the need and/or non-need based aid groups.) https://www.holycross.edu/document/common-data-set-20232024
Discounting is relatively greater at schools that have higher admit rates (of course.) For example, at Iowa State (a school I love), it looks like around 87% of undergrads received either need based or merit aid, not including the athletes who received athletic scholarships. https://www.ir.iastate.edu/files/documents/cds/CDS-24-25.pdf
Yes, I agree. Of course there are schools offering merit aid (discounting). And some schools offer proportionately a lot of merit aid. I was reacting to the view that “few” families were full pay at schools like Holy Cross.
Agreed…but I was surprised to see that at Holy Cross more than half receive some type of FA (but still much more than a ‘few’ are full pay.)
Did the NPC ask if the student was applying in the development / donor admission category?
A parent contribution number over sticker price is the amount the school has calculated that you can pay for college. Since it’s well above sticker price, you then are considered full pay and will be paying the sticker price.
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