<p>Recently there has been few threads about huge debts students are accumulating, and where the responsibility lies when it happens. Many people have said that schools should shoulder some blame in offering admission to students who clearly couldn’t afford the tuition, even with FA. One school that has been in the limelight is NYU.</p>
<p>Most of us believe even need blind schools are not always need blind, sometimes finance still comes into play, especially when it comes to WL. Sometimes a school would admit a less qualified student because the family is a major donor. But no school has ever said a student’s family’s ability to pay is a factor in admission. If so, most of us would think it is a form of discrimination. On the other hand, many people feel a school like NYU should advise students from a poor family not to take on a large debt in order to go to a dream school. Wouldn’t it be easier for NYU to just reject students who just couldn’t afford the tuition, or ask for evidence of ability to pay before given admission? Colleges would be like banks, determining what kind of school (house) someone could afford.</p>
<p>I like the idea of them not taking it into consideration, then advising the student not to attend if they think the student will have take up large amounts of debt.</p>
<p>I would like to see the lending institutions get serious about how much debt unemployed people (students) are allowed to accumulate. It is sad that students are so uninformed about the debt they are taking on.</p>
<p>I do not think cost (or ability to pay) should be factored in to admissions decisions because of scholarships and grants that are unknown factors at the time of application. However, cost should be considered in the decision to attend.</p>
<p>This is a quote from the thread about a graduate of NYU with 100k+ debt. There are a lot of full paying students who would be happy to pay NYU’s tuition, wouldn’t it be better for NYU to just say no?</p>
<p>The problem is that even if there were some kind of restriction on students’ borrowing, some kids are beating the system by having their parents take Plus loans with the promise that the kid will pay the big loans back. Or, the students are going to private loans. </p>
<p>I don’t know if there is an easy solution. </p>
<p>A FAFSA only school doesn’t really know if there is a NCP that can come thru with the cash (same with a CSS school that doesn’t ask for NCP info). </p>
<p>And, a CSS school that does ask for NCP info, doesn’t know if there are rich relatives that will pay. </p>
<p>So, to just outright deny such students may end up causing students who do have the means to be rejected.</p>
<p>On the other hand, to accept a child who really has no means to pay his large gap except to hog-tie himself to large loans seems almost cruel. </p>
<p>Frankly, it’s the parents responsibility to help guide their 17/18 year old about such things. Unfortunately, there are parents who are as naive about all of this as some kids.</p>
<p>But when I apply for a mortgage, the lending institution wants to know how much debt I already carry and how much I have in the bank. If the lending institutions had told these students that they would not loan them more money, they couldn’t have gotten in as deep.</p>
<p>The universities have deep enough acceptance lists that they can just go down the list if the yield isn’t high enough. When I looked at a private high school for DD long after the annual admissions cycle was complete, one of the first questions the admissions director asked was whether we would need financial aid and when I said we wouldn’t, the converstation continued.</p>
<p>The article you are referring to was about student loans (over $100K) for someone who went to NYU and majored in women studies. I recall many folks here thought the student was to blame, while the article criticized the school. Your question asks, “Wouldn’t it be easier for NYU to just reject students who just couldn’t afford the tuition, or ask for evidence of ability to pay before given admission?”</p>
<p>I believe different schools have different policies about acceptance and whether FA is part of that decision. Certainly, some schools are honest and describe themselves as “need-aware”, but that is not the norm. I do feel there is a part of this process that is not getting done: learning about and understanding finances and their long-term consequences. I’m not sure why schools are not providing this. My sense is that that information is glazed over as if those monthly payments are “just a nuisance” to talk about. And the student and parent are still in the honeymoon period to understand the long term effects.</p>
<p>Should colleges base their decisions on a student’s ability to pay? Well, that was how it was years ago, but at some colleges, especially the ivies, their application pool rose significantly because of their financial awards program.</p>
<p>Colleges are a business, plain and simple. Do they have a duty to inform the student? Maybe. Should they deny a student if that student is too heavily in debt? I think that has to be the student’s decision, but that student has to be fully informed / knowledgeable about consequences (including no bankruptcy option). I’m not sure that is happening, but maybe because there are too many players involved, unlike what happens when taking out a mortgage.</p>
<p>Some applications have a block to check if you are applying for financial aid. Wouldn’t that give schools a clue as to who is planning to write the check?</p>
<p>I am playing devil’s advocate here. On paper, my father shouldn’t have been able to send three of us to top private schools, even with FA 25+ years ago. Our family cut back on everything in order for us to attend those schools. Growing up I thought Salvation Army was the only store to shop, and going out to eat was at McD few times a year. Dartmouth actually told my dad that maybe it wasn’t the right school for my sister because my dad tried to appeal her FA. Because of our family’s sacrifice, we were able to have social/economic mobility.</p>
<p>oldfort, obviously your family knew what those college bills meant: money due. Does that young student from NYU? No!!! She is simply deferring payment. It didn’t sound like she has been sacrificing and she hasn’t been paying.</p>
<p>Also note: Dartmouth advised your father “that maybe it wasn’t the right school”. They spoke up, but gave your dad the final decision. I think what they did is the way it should be: inform the parents, but let them have the final decision.</p>
<p>One problem is that families aren’t always upfront about what they can pay. If they can/will pay, they often “cry poor” at first to see how much aid they can get. Then, when the aid package isn’t good, they cough up the money. (I don’t mean your dad, oldfort )</p>
<p>I do see a problem when a student has an EFC 0, lives in a poor area, obviously has no other source of funds…in such a case, the school either needs to cough up the bucks to pay or maybe deny the kid or give them some kind of conditional acceptance based on showing some ability to pay by an early date.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t exactly call a middle class family applying for financial aid “crying poor”. </p>
<p>I would have some issues with colleges denying admission to students they didn’t think could pay. I paid my own way through school through a combination of scholarships, working, and loans, but I majored in a subject that would get me a high-paying job also. There are a lot of factors involved in the financial outcome for the student; the college may not be a good judge of individual finances.</p>
<p>I think colleges need to be very upfront about this. They should let the final decision go to the parents and student, but they should at least have them fill out some form that shows exactly how they’ll be paying the bills. I’m not sure who is being more unrealistic: the school or the parents, but there shouldn’t be any surprises.</p>
<p>But I’m not in favor of a college actively denying a student because they can’t afford to pay. That’s not fair. It should be a mutual decision, based on objective measures.</p>
<p>Everything is a shell game. Colleges over charge, but then “give” part of the money back in terms of financial aid. Being accepted at a college is only one part of the process, the other is what is the cost to attend. Truthfully, a financial aid package is essentially a “how bad do we want you to attend package”.</p>
<p>I really don’t know about this one. As a kid who needed financial aid badly, it would have broken my heart to have gotten into my dream school and not have good enough financial aid to attend. I would have been tempted(although I would not have succumbed…or at least I would like to believe) to take out too much debt to make it happen. I do think I’d rather have been rejected than accepted and told “haha, you can’t go” </p>
<p>But, at the same time, some kids might be able to make it work. Maybe throught a grandparent or fairy god mother, so, unless a college is omniscient, there’s no way to tel lwho can pay and who can’t</p>
<p>It’s complicated, and I really see both sides</p>
<p>*I wouldn’t exactly call a middle class family applying for financial aid “crying poor”. *</p>
<p>I think you misunderstood. </p>
<p>On some applications, I think there is a question about how much your family can pay (maybe this is on CSS??? ). I’ve heard people talk about this. They are nervous about what to put. They’re afraid that if they say exactly how much they can pay, a school will only give aid up to that amount. So, they underestimate in hopes of getting more aid. </p>
<p>That’s what I meant by crying poor. They really can pay more, but they state a lesser amount in hopes of getting more aid. When more aid isn’t forthcoming, they pay an amount that is more than what they initially claimed.</p>
<p>NYU doesn’t promise to meet full need and it only requires FAFSA to apply for financial aid, so they don’t have the depth of information about family finances that a 100%-need school generally has. For example, NYU might have an application from child of divorced parents, both of whom own their own homes, but whose custodial parent is only marginally employed. But perhaps both parents have plenty of home equity, and ample money put aside in retirement funds, and the noncustodial father is wealthier and willing to finance the child’s education. NYU would never know that.</p>
<p>This is also an example of where a family might actually fare better with NYU on financial aid than with other schools-- there may be assets and income that disqualify the family from need-based aid at other colleges, but which are hidden from view from NYU. Since NYU does not promise to meet full need, there is no particular reason for them to start prying for more information – but that doesn’t mean it would make sense for them to deny financial aid applicants admission on the assumption that they can’t afford to come utilizing assets or resources that were not required to be disclosed on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>The problem in my mind is that NYU packages their aid in a deceptive manner. They label PLUS loans as if they are part of the financial aid package, when in fact a PLUS loan is a federal program intended to help parents finance the part of an education NOT covered by financial aid. So financial aid recipients typically get a document that looks like their full need IS being met, and only when they take a second look do they realize that part of the “aid” is a $30K parent loan. </p>
<p>So the point is not that they should reject applicants who can’t afford to come – but rather that they should be more direct. My son was accepted in 2001 to a college that was not able to meet the financial need of all its applicants – we got a letter admitting him accompanied by a letter saying, “sorry, we don’t have funds for financial aid, but you are qualified for a Stafford loan”. It could not have been more clear that my son had been accepted but given the short end of the financial aid stick. </p>
<p>You might think it doesn’t make much of a difference – after all, its just a matter of phrasing – but there is study after study in all sorts of context that show that people make different decisions depending on how the problem is framed. I am sure that the enrollment managers for NYU are very much aware of this – anybody involved in marketing of any kind knows these things.</p>
<p>The other thing that NYU could do would be to discourage private lending to students, at least where the student is seeking large amounts. I mean… if NYU pushes a $30K PLUS loan, and the next thing that happens is that the kid is seeking certification for a private $30K student loan — that’s a clear message to the financial aid department that the kid is way over their head. That’s the point counseling could and should come in.</p>
Are you saying that if you had earned your undergraduate degree at a public university, perhaps commuting from home… that you would now be digging ditches for a living? </p>
<p>I mean – it is wonderful that your dad sacrificed to put you through school… and an elite education is wonderful to have – but its not absolutely necessary.</p>
That’s not “beating the system” because no matter what the is promised, the PARENTS are still on the hook for those loans. The promise may be carried out to fruition, but it is legally unenforceable.</p>
<p>I think colleges should give up the fiction that they’re meeting a student’s financial need with loans.</p>
<p>Loans don’t meet need; they represent a failure to meet need.</p>
<p>I don’t want to see students denied admission based on the fact that they would have to take on “too much” debt. That’s too paternalistic. But at the same time, the colleges know what this debt entails, because that’s their job, and many families don’t, because this is new to them. I would like to see colleges explicitly explain how much the student is going to have to borrow and what paying it off will entail – in terms of how much they will be paying and for how many years. Let the students and families decide, but give them a realistic picture.</p>
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