I agree with this op Ed. Everybody except the colleges would be better off without ED. And even the colleges would be just fine as long as all of them “disarm” at the same time.
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I don’t disagree and i don’t know what the stats are but I’m guessing far more ED students are full pay than not - outside of programs that provide counsel like QB.
ED is a way for them to get the wealthy. Schools know that.
Colleges do for themselves first and foremost, not for the audience they purport to want to serve.
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Without Early Decision and the large share of full-pay students it brings, some schools might struggle to be as generous with financial aid as they are now.
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I mean, I feel terribly for them, but this is a BIG thing they signed on for and skipped some pretty easy due diligence (as did their obviously VERY smart kid).
At some point, people can’t be saved from themselves.
I don’t have a big issue with ED for private schools. I don’t love the games some play with it, but I don’t think it should be regulated…
I do think public schools should avoid it, but in the grand scheme of policy issues, I don’t see this as something the feds need to be stressing about at the moment.
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I agree! But it doesn’t seem that unusual either… now one of my D26’s friends is applying to her first choice ED, and her mom told me they didn’t run NPC either and “will just figure it out if she’s accepted.” I urged her to run NPC and she brushed me off… and I know they don’t have college savings, because the mom was telling me months ago about how they expected to have to take loans.
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For the most part, parents control a student’s decision to apply ED. If they aren’t being transparent with their kids, they need to stop fooling themselves and their children.
The author doesn’t address that, and barely addresses parents at all in this article, blaming colleges almost entirely. The author states, “Early decision forces 17- and 18-year-olds to make life-altering decisions without comparing options,” as if students are making these decisions unilaterally without the consent of the parents.
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I think that is true due to the nature of who usually applies ED:
-Athletes (Usually fairly wealthy families who can afford multiple years’ of elite clubs and cross-country travel for recruiting)
-Legacies (Mostly wealthy)
-Competitive applicants who have everything ready to go for an early app (Again, wealthier families who are educated and capable enough to provide that kind of support) However, there are plenty of middle class financial aid recipients in this group, depending on the school.
Did the colleges design all of this to get wealthier applicants in the ED round or did it end up being a by-product of the yield-focused admissions system?
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and there are loans, and there are LOANS
I wish them well and hope it is all ok in end.
I also do not understand people with car payments that are sizes of mortgages, though, so I guess to each their own. We don’t, as policy, regulate that, so I can’t get worked up by this.
Very occasionally, I see these dumb Instagram videos where they ask people about their car and credit card payments at Disney and I want to fall off my chair. (note, I don’t begrudge people with debt a vacation AT ALL, but I do not understand expensive cars specifically).
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exactly!
The kids aren’t solo signing 100K/year loans.
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I appreciate they lived up to their commitment - even if it screws them up financially. The cost of lack of preparedness.
But we see many that just assume or say they’ll figure it out later.
How do you protect them from themselves?
yep, you can’t. I would bet this is not the only area of their lives where they live this way. Could be wrong, but many people just figure they will figure it out later! And for many, it does seem to work out, I guess. Different risk tolerances, different life experiences, and family norms. Truthfully, throwing caution to the wind and spending on education seems more worthwhile than some things IMO. (Going into debt for a wedding is something apparently some parents do, but it is a free country, and to each their own I guess.) Nobody is going to regulate that!
Yes, people use loans for all sorts of things. But the difference is that for most large purchases, people know in advance how much the purchase is going to cost. For college, people don’t necessarily know how much it will actually cost until they get their aid / merit award, and they may have unrealistic illusions or expectations about aid / merit.
That’s why I’d personally like to see people get some kind of pre-read or at least be required to run NPC before ED commitment. I would think that would be a positive thing for the schools, too (lower chance of ED admits dropping out due to costs).
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We see this on regular chance mes too.
I’m applying to Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Virginia.
What’s your budget?
Well $25K but I qualify for no aid.
So then don’t waste your time.
No, i’ll apply and figure out later.
Or - they don’t know the budget - even worse.
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true, and some do, though not in a way (I presume) either of us would like, and some are disappointed.
FWIW, my family took out a (small) loan for my HS for 2 years which I am sure you (and now as an adult I) think is bonkers…. You know what? It turned out absolutely for the best for a variety of reasons (and yes, I know confirmation bias etc etc )- but w/o going into LOTS of personal details, I can’t / won’t go into I can 100% guarantee I am in a financial place I wouldn’t be w/o that ..
Live and let live on this I think.
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Yes.
As I have stated several times previously ED worked well for our family. We are a high need family, and my D22’s top choice was a meets need, need blind school. She is an anxious kid, who would have struggled with both a high stakes decision among several choices in the spring as well as with the long wait. Her anxious mom would have struggled with the wait (though she only had six schools total in her list and only one of those was RD - however, that would have been her second choice). She was allowed to apply ED anywhere the NPC worked, we didn’t force her to take the cheapest choice if we could afford it. There were two schools she was momentarily interested in where the NPC didn’t work for us and she knew she couldn’t ED to either (ended up not applying to either in the end). But overall ED worked very well for us. But we weren’t looking for merit aid which in most cases would not have made a school affordable for us on its own. And unlike wealthier families where merit aid actually reduces the cost of college, for most families getting need-based aid it just reduces the amount of beed-based aid the student gets so you end up in the same place anyway (I.e., merit aid is really only helpful if you’re wealthy or I guess sometimes attend a school without good financial aid). But bottom line is my D22 and her family were THRILLED to be done in mid-December and she’s never regretted it.
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What do you think are the valid points?
This, amongst others: ”the business of applying to colleges … a complex strategy matrix in which students try to game out their chances rather than looking for the school where they’re most likely to thrive.” This is true for some students.
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Exactly this. One of the most striking lines in the article was the revelation that Tulane released roughly 10 percent of its ED applicants due to affordability. 10 percent! YCBK podcast put that number at about 50 kids when they discussed this issue recently. Either the Tulane NPC is terrible, or there are many Tulane applicants who just don’t investigate the costs before applying. Maybe both.
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Common App should have something like an NPC supplement. Where the kids/parents sign off on the calculated NPC value and the tracing information for the NPC submission that generated that value. Then Common App agrees to keep that information private until merit/financial aid is released by the university. Then there would be a record of exactly what people agreed to rather than this wishy washy gray area.
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