<p>curious14:</p>
<p>Are you claiming mind-reading abilities? Guess away.</p>
<p>“What makes you think that a school that meets less than 100% of need would allocate the funds from cutting back merit aid to increase need-based aid.”</p>
<p>Curious, you are missing the point (or, at least, my point). What I want is for schools to meet 100% of financial need. Period. If they don’t do that, I couldn’t care less how they spend their money – whether it goes for rose bushes or professor salaries or new dishes. My problem is with the school’s policy, not the fungibility of money.</p>
<p>Next comes the issue of how the school meets financial need, and how it defines need. Once I’m happy that the need is not being met entirely with loans, and when stupid policies like making deadbeat dads pay for college are eliminated, then come and ask me whether a college should offer merit aid. I think we’ll have to wait a long time before you’ll get to ask me that question.</p>
<p>The issue to me is not merit aid. The issue is schools that don’t meet financial need and offer merit aid simultaneously. Why in heck do they accept a kid if there’s not enough money offered? And then they turn around and give another kid a ton of money, a kid who may have higher SATs that are linked to higher family income and more secure socio-economic status? Sorry, that just bothers me.</p>
<p>Sly,</p>
<p>Your objection appears to be to schools not meeting 100% of need with grants and with there being no way for a student who is financially abandoned by a parent to get need based aid. I don’t have a problem with meeting 100% of need with grants and if a knew a solution to the other problem I’d be in favor of that too. Being in favor of those things doesn’t make me any more in favor of cutting merit aid than being in favor of higher faculty salaries makes me in favor of cutting need based aid. These are largely separate issues, except for those who chose to combine them inorder to confuse the issue. The only thing that any of them have in common is that they and thousands of other issues are budget issues.</p>
<p>
I’ll take one last crack at this. Either one believes all eductional opportunities need to be open to everyone or some form of selection/exclusion is needed. For me when considering colleges, the line is at the border of the campus … once you’re on campus it’s pretty much a equal opportunity gig … if you agree great if you don’t that’s fine. </p>
<p>I can ask the debating question going the other way. Why limit “rewarding performance” to a in-out grouping at admission … why are schools limiting the incentive value of the merit reward? … if you really believed in merit aid stronger students should get better merit treatment. The following merit system creates a much closer tie to rewarding performance. Each term rank all the students at a school that gives merit aid and the student with the highest GPA goes for free … for every position drop in class rank the student has to pay another $250 … now every student is being rewarded explicitly for their performance. The current systems do not fully reward the top performing students or maximize the financial incentive for each student to do their best … in fact believing in merit systems with grouping of students receiving the same merit award is hypocritical to a true merit system. Or does that seem too extreme to you? If so, you’ve drawn a line in your merit system … well I drew a line also … just a different line.</p>
<p>I can see the line to register for “sports physiology” and “rocks for jocks” stretching around the admisitration building twice.</p>
<p>I think that not having honors programs at small LAC’s is both reasonable and common practice (excluding honors programs that are really just the choice to write a senior thesis). But in large state universities the honors program is really the only shot for many middle class kids to get an affordable serious education with other serious students.</p>
<p>Curious,
Absolutely! Good point!</p>
<p>curious: w/regard to your post 185. Haha-- yeah, I can see that, too. :)</p>
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</p>
<p>That’s okay–no offense taken. (Son is at PSU.) I expect comments like these on CC. </p>
<p>I can’t even begin to tell you the number of top, serious students who go to Penn State from our local high schools who are not in the honors college, and are being quite challenged there.</p>
<p>Eventually, the top 50 schools offering merit aid may decide they no longer need to do so. If the influx of apps and yield maintains itself (with the increase in intl apps), then I can see a day when those schools would shift their priorities to need-based aid. There aren’t enough spots in the top 25 schools for all the talent out there. The top students must go somewhere–with or without merit aid.</p>
<p>Too many wealthy students take merit aid. I’m not impressed when S tells me so and so has a 50% merit scholarship–and both parents are well-to-do physicians. </p>
<p>Personally, I feel it reflects badly on the family’s values. It’s a Wal-Mart ‘discount’ mentality. It’s money-grubbing.</p>
<p>hereshopping, </p>
<p>Sorry, still think they are a good idea, no offense meant.</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>Would you feel the same way if the kid was offered a similar athletic scholarship.</p>
<p>Merit aid and need-based aid are both forms of what is technically referred to as “price discrimination.” In the case of merit aid the intent is to attract students who have better academic options. In the case of need based aid the intent is to attract students who would pass on the offer for financial reasons. Obviously there is some conceptual overlap. Some of you seem to be operating under the illusion that universities offer need based aid out of some sense of moral obligation. In fact the concept is no different than senior discounts, something I assume some of you are familiar with. Businesses offer them because seniors are more price conscious not because they feel seniors are more deserving.</p>
<p>For those of you considering refusing merit aid on moral grounds, may I suggest an alternative? Accept the merit scholarship which generally will not be taxable income. A $10,000 scholarship will save you approximately $14000 in pretax wages! Make a tax deductible donation to the school in any amount that you feel you can afford, and specify that your donation must be used for providing need based scholarships only. A $10,000 tax deductible contribution could save you as much as $3,000 in taxes. Financially you will come out way ahead, and trust me - the school will be thrilled!! Much more so than if you had simply refused their generous scholarship offer in the first place. And you know what? The IRS won’t care either, as long as there is no quid pro quo. You might even get your name on a plaque somewhere at the school. Many schools hand out $10k scholarships like candy, but they don’t get too many $10k donations.</p>
<p>“In the case of merit aid the intent is to attract students who have better academic options. In the case of need based aid the intent is to attract students who would pass on the offer for financial reasons.”</p>
<p>I don’t know why you would think that. Our family income is higher than two-thirds of U.S. families, and from our vantage point, we could care less whether the tuition discount was called “merit aid” or “need-based aid” because it made absolutely no difference - d. wasn’t going there unless the price was right, and I think I am speaking for at least two-thirds of the families in this country, and likely more. </p>
<p>Those distinctions only hold true for the top quintile of families, if that.</p>
<p>Cheers: I understand your reaction, but another pertinent question is: If your S’s friend had not been awarded that 50 percent scholarship, would it have gone to a needy kid or another high-scoring affluent student the college wanted to attract? If it is the college’s decision how to distribute its merit aid money to entice the students it wants to attract, I’m not sure the well-off student who applies and wins is guilty of selfishness or poor family values. </p>
<p>I’m acquainted with a similar instance that kind of shocked me when I first heard of it. A full-tuition scholarship went to a student I know, the only child of a wealthy couple. The house alone is worth a couple million. Their graduation gift to the kid: a brand-new Mercedes Kompressor. But this was a scholarship to attend the music department and this student is a state and national award-winning musician. The college must have wanted this kid badly. Had he turned it down, there’s no reason to think it would have gone to a financially needy student instead.</p>
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<p>This is not necessary true for every school. Both my DS1 and DD2 applied EA to Caltech(12 years apart). Caltech knew that they applied to only one school and they both accepted the offer of admission in December. So far as we were concern, there were no better academic options. They never applied financial aid. Yet, they were both awarded the Lingle scholarship, the Caltech’s highest distinction for freshman admits in Spring.</p>
<p>Mini, </p>
<p>Did you read the next sentence: “Obviously there is some conceptual overlap.” That’s you.</p>
<p>Inverse,</p>
<p>Interesting point. I am aware that some schools grant merit aid to students who have already committed e.g. ED students. In these cases I think the point is to let students know that there is no financial penalty associated with ED. The target market here is future, not current, applicants.</p>
<p>I imagine that true merit scholarships require that student maintain a certain GPA–hope kid applying furiously has looked into this! The workload in many cases can be overwhelming–plus that scholarship money is dangling each semester if kid can’t make the grades! However, one has to wonder if there is really any true merit anymore. Frankly, I just don’t see it! Or is the true merit the offer of admission alone?</p>