@bclintock:
“Schools like #136 WUSTL, #139 Boston College, #144 Wake Forest, #146 Villanova, #147 American, #148 Pitt, #151 George Washington, #152 Penn State, #153 Whitman, #154 Carnegie Mellon, #163 RPI, #165 Northeastern, #167 University of Miami, and #173 WPI are all schools that get a fair amount of attention on CC but do poorly on this index due to a combination of low numbers of Pell grant recipients in their respective student bodies and a high net cost for middle-income students.”
^^^^ And how many of these colleges have higher per-student endowments than NYU and BU? The outpouring of ire should be directed at them, not always so focused on NYU and BU.
AND, how many of the colleges deemed marginally “more generous” than NYU and BU have per-student endowments that are many multiples of NYU’s and BU’s? Looks to me like NYU and BU are doing the best they can with what they have. Would we rather they not accept Pell and middle class students because they don’t have the $$ to fully fund them? And I know in the case of NYU, there is the possibility that the low income/middle class student will get full need met through merit, which is not even a remote possibility at some of the more “generous” colleges who offer NO merit aid and have a stingy definition of “need” and don’t accept that many Pell students anyway (as revealed by the low percentages of Pells at those schools).
*I say “marginally” more generous because we are talking about the top 179 most generous colleges with a 75%-plus grad rate. Out of thousands of US colleges. So, yes, we are talking about relative margins here.