<p>Ok you guys should probably just stop. The arguments in favor of this discriminatory policy are getting further and further away from any factual basis. The college price is not Cost Plus as it is with a field trip and we know this because the NCES publishes statistics on the average spending per pupil. And we have university officers telling us that they are using differential pricing to subsidize discounting. References to the door policy of rave clubs is not persuasive.
[Private</a> Colleges Adopt Car Lot Strategy - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/09/15/private-colleges-adopt-car-lot-strategy]Private”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/09/15/private-colleges-adopt-car-lot-strategy)</p>
<p>Rather than continuing the intellectual debasement of trying to defend this rationally why dont you guys just admit that you are supporting the discriminatory policy for philosophical reasons of your own. That should be a big comfort to OP.</p>
<p>As that article points out, the top colleges get enough in donations that they don’t have to fund financial aid out of tuition of other students. That may not be the case at other schools. (And if full pay doesn’t pay all the costs of education–as it doesn’t at top schools–then by definition you’re not punishing people by giving them less of a discount from what the goods actually cost than others.) If I give Fred one free turkey, and I give Joe two free turkeys, I’m not punishing Fred.</p>
<p>*“But if the school chopped its price close to the roughly $24,000 that the typical student pays, wealthier students would pay less, and wouldn’t provide the extra tuition needed to fund lower income students who can’t afford that average price, says W. Kent Barnds, vice president of enrollment, communication, and planning.”</p>
<p>But argybargy, the trouble with your reasoning is that you assume that the pricing of every good/service should be exactly the same no matter what the good/service. I think, for a long time, we have recognized that the ‘good/service’ universities provide are different, and special, in that it’s a kind of good/service that should be open to as many people as possible. Scholarships on the basis of need have been around for a long, long time. </p>
<p>The OP himself exhibits the same kind of attitude that education is a special good/service. I sorta doubt that if his D asked for a 250K diamond ring, he would be up at night worrying that he is a failure. But education, and an elite education at that, has a special status and importance in this society over and above the status of possessing luxury goods. </p>
<p>We recognize that having a highly educated society is worth it for the common good. Universities do what they can to make their service available to as many different types of people as possible. That is part of the universities’ value system.</p>
<p>So I disagree with you that education needs to be priced in the same way as other goods/services. I don’t need to find a parallel case with respect to other goods/services in the marketplace. Education is something special and different.</p>
<p>Well, I just read the article, and it doesn’t necessarily say that the scholarship money is alway going to people on the basis of financial status. It says that the scholarship money is being used to lure students because of the feeling of being valued and the ability to boast it gives the admitted student/family.</p>
<p>I’m sure that colleges like Augustana are giving scholarship money to high stats, high income kids to attract students.</p>
<p>Ok, this is why you guys should just stop. If you want to support a discriminatory policy do so, but not because you are under the illusion that your intellectual arguments hold water. </p>
<p>The quote from the article says the exact opposite- you reading into it that “high income” kids are getting money thrown at them.</p>
<p>I will chime in that Augustana–at least in 2009–was very generous with merit awards when D2 applied. And that quote from W. Kent Barnds, who we dealt with at the time, is about as honest a statement as you will get from a college administrator. At least he admits it. </p>
<p>Augustana is very popular in our neck of the woods, but I thought even then that their list price was too dang high. With their merit awards given, however, their bottom line ended up being less than every other school D2 applied to, including UIUC in-state. Who can say what a specific college education is worth, though.</p>
<p>There is a self-selection effect going on here. </p>
<p>I am guessing that the people priced out the college because they were expected to pay their kid’s full tuition plus part of someone elses and those who didnt apply because of sticker shock arent “boasting” of “the Chivas Regal effect” as many admission officers “believe”.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, argbargy, there is no evidence that wealthy people are being priced out of a college education. None. Maybe there are wealthy people who have decided that they won’t pay full price at a particular institution, and finding another institution that’s cheaper, or where they get merit money and it’s cheaper, but there is absolutely no evidence that lower to middle income students are matriculating to college more than upper income students. Even at institutions like Harvard.</p>
<p>Let me also add this. I’ve been playing around with financial aid calculators, especially at the small private liberal arts college my second son has his eye on.</p>
<p>The aid award there is divided between a merit scholarship and need based scholarship. If I input a 24 ACT and a 3.5 GPA, I get a 10K merit scholarship. If I input a 30 ACT and a 3.5 GPA, I get a 14K merit scholarship.</p>
<p>However, if I input a 120K salary and the 30 ACT, I get only the 14K scholarship, for a net price of $27,700. If I input a 75K salary, I get a net price of 21, 900. </p>
<p>So, despite 45K increase in salary, the net price difference is only about 5K.</p>
<p>So for whom is this college more affordable? How is the upper income family being priced out? How is this college easier to afford for the middle income family?</p>
<p>Note how both are getting a scholarship (even at the relatively modest ACT score of 24), and how the merit awards are significantly higher than the need based aid awards.</p>
<p>Financial aid policies and awards as places like Harvard should not be a proxy for financial aid policies and awards in higher education in general.</p>
<p>That is both theoretical and incorrect. If you run the numbers through an EFC calculator, the saver does NOT have his/her EFC doubled.</p>
<p>Current (technically previous year) income counts for EFC more than anything else, by far.</p>
<p>Savings (and by savings I don’t mean for retirement which is largely protected, just cash in a parent’s savings account) are exempted to a point and of the remainder about 5% is expected to be used per year.</p>
<p>This is like the welfare queen myth, this imaginary family with a Mercedes and no savings and a 200K income getting tons of financial aid…it ain’t happening.</p>
<p>…and after I typed this I saw skrlvr said basically the same thing. Oh well, it bears repeating.</p>
<p>Can we define terms? Because the point at which you take on societal approbation for being ‘wealthy’ i s different from which it impacts your alleged ‘aid’.</p>
<p>Really, argbargy, is that the best you can do? Quibble over the definition of wealthy?</p>
<p>I’ve thrown a lot of numbers up here in this thread based on on-line Net Price Calculators. I’ve tried to show that you aren’t penalized as much as people have supposed for saving money with respect to financial aid at elite colleges like Harvard. I’ve tried to show that at some private liberal arts colleges, the aid isn’t that much different between families making as much as 45K difference in income.</p>
<p>You haven’t responded directly to a single one of those posts. </p>
<p>If you really, really wanna stick to the idea that wealthy people are being priced out of a college education, and that middle to low income students are not because of generous aid, then go ahead. I’ll not play semantics with you. I don’t think you’re here because you’re curious about this issue. You’ve made up your mind, and that’s that.</p>
<p>The Net Price Calculators are on the web. If you are wondering how financial aid impacts the rates of low, middle and high income families (based on your own definitions) attending whatever type of institution you wanna look at, go have fun and play around with them.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the question kind of comes down to “should education be treated differently from other commodities or shouldn’t it?” Obviously, some people think it shouldn’t, which is fine, they are entitled to their opinions. It does seem as if the majority disagrees, the colleges themselves disagree, contributors to the college scholarship funds disagree, less fortunate students disagree, etc. </p>
<p>Assets of the top 5% of the population have risen faster than prestige private college list prices for the last 30 years, and COA there (for them) has never been cheaper. But these places seem to believe that the education of the wealthy is enhanced when they make it possible for the some of the rest of us to attend.</p>
<p>The wealthy should be thankful to the institutions to have figured that out. (James B. Conant at Harvard was the strongest early proponent; Jill Ker Conway at Smith, in expanding access, was also a leader.)</p>
<p>Of course, sometimes they didn’t do it too well. When I was a first-year student at Williams, we had sit-down, jacket-and-tie dinners four nights a week. The “we” meant non-scholarship students. Some of us wore little white jackets and served our “betters”, and were supposed to be thankful for the opportunity. For me, that lasted all of three weeks - I found other ways, not directly paid by the college, to work my way through. (The freshman dorms also had servants’ quarters on the fourth floor - thankfully, no longer in use.)</p>
<p>Let’s be clear - that’s a long time ago. But even though my alma mater so heavily subsidizes the millionaires’ kids (the average subsidy is larger than the average discount from list price given to students on aid), they (like so many others) have also come to believe that their educational mission is wider than that - and we should ALL be grateful for it.</p>
<p>OP,
I was talking to my sister earlier today and she reminded me about if only my parents let me go to that top college and what my parents thought affordable changed with each kid(they spent progressively more with each kid </p>
<p>I am the first kid, my parents didn’t think they could afford the tution and also they didn’t let me go to a top college because it was too far. I remember thinking about how every thing would have been if only I went to that top college, actually my dad felt really bad later on. </p>
<p>When my sister reminded me about that today, I thought about your post and wanted to post this. It might have made a difference during the initial years after graduating, but I consider myself a successful person earning enough to get EFC for my DD to be more than 50K. I love what I do and have great support system with my coworkers, flexibility at work that enables me to attend the school events even during work time. I think I am where I wanted to be, your daughter will be where she wants to be as long as she is working towards her goals. </p>
<p>Stop feeling bad about it. Encourage her, that’s all she needs.</p>
<p>Right. Except for the “commodity” part. There are people here who believe the “elite” schools should be for those who have “done everything right” and can pay for them without (in their opinion) “subsidizing others.” They don’t want their kid going to a “commodity” school and believe that their resources should be an advantage, just as high scores, great ECs or whatever.</p>
<p>Yes, except, most of the students at “elite schools” actually want and have come to expect “diversity” in their colleges. So, the less diversity, the less attractive they would be to the candidates they want to attract. Diversity includes SES.</p>
</p>