@PurpleTitan How would it affect the 25-75 percentile test scores?
@jazzymomof7, the schools that give merit money often use it to get kids with high stats who they would otherwise not get.
@PurpleTitan So, how do you think the student bodies would look different if the list price was reduced? Do you mean that the stats at elite schools would be lower somehow?
I know people in higher ed and I know that private schools could make the finances work if most students paid close to full tuition that was closer to $35K. I mean Williams AVERAGE was $16K.
I understand merit money and I know it’s not given out at most top universities and LACs. What I meant is that I’m sure there are lot more families who could afford $35K and wouldn’t need any scholarships or grants. Perhaps those families would have their student take the minimum federal loan and maybe even the parents have to take out a loan, but maybe they do have some money saved to pay part of that $35K. I see many families on CC (and I know a bunch) who say that they can make $25K work, but not $70K.
Unfortunately, we are the family that loves discounts. But we saved for college because we could and because we are willing to spend that savings on our kids’ education. We are ready to pay full price for the right place. I just think the high ticket/giant discount thing is a problem.
@homerdog:
“I know people in higher ed and I know that private schools could make the finances work if most students paid close to full tuition that was closer to $35K. I mean Williams AVERAGE was $16K.”
They could make the finances work, but they would not get the composition of the student body that they desire. Not just stats-wise, but in terms of the makeup of the student body they can put together, SES diversity, etc.
BTW, is that the average tuition paid? Because only roughly half of Williams’ student body receives fin aid, meaning half are full-pay. Even if all those who get fin aid paid nothing, the average total cost would still come out to half of Williams’ COA, which would make it closer to $35K/year.
“What I meant is that I’m sure there are lot more families who could afford $35K and wouldn’t need any scholarships or grants”
And there are many families who can not. Not everyone is comfortably middle-class.
“I just think the high ticket/giant discount thing is a problem.”
But the privates don’t. They clearly think that they can maximize both revenues and institutional goals with the model they have now.
BTW, a lot of publics (those who offer little fin aid or merit scholarships) run with the financial model you prefer. Almost everybody who’s in-state pays the in-state rate. Almost everybody who’s OOS pays the (inflated) OOS rate.
The Williams book says “$16,000 is the average cost of a Williams education after financial aid”. So, that’s totally not clear. Is that one year or four? How could it be four?? After financial aid meaning loans aren’t included in that $16k?
Also more stats. 15% pay nothing. 50% of kids receive financial aid. Well, there’s part of the answer 50% pay full, 15% pay nothing. Those remaining 35% pay somewhere between zero and $16k for the average to be $16k.
Or maybe that $16k is the average cost for those kids getting aid and doesn’t include the kids paying full tuition. In fact, wouldn’t that have to be the case? You can’t even have 50% full pay and 50% pay nothing and get to $16k as an average.
Any way you cut it, the mailer is deceiving. Makes people think their chance of paying $16k is a good chance since it’s the “average”.
@homerdog, from that language, it seems that $16K/year is the average that fin aid recipients pay in total costs.
And sure, you can argue that the mailer is deceiving. American colleges are incented to increase the number of applications as much as possible as many Americans (both kids and parents) seem to think that admission rate is such an important statistic and judge colleges by it.
Okay son is in this situation now, any advice would be great. He has been accepted at UCF (Central Florida) with highest merit scholarship as well as accepted in to their Honors college which caps classes at 29-25 kids and offers all his general Ed’s he would need and they have a nationally ranked coding team. He is computer engineering major. He’ll have calc 1 and 2 and physics 1 &2 done before graduation.
He was also excepted at UF ( Gators). Got into their honors program ( they don’t have a college) and into an undergrad research program and a $2k admissions to honors scholarship.
He is not a sports or partying kid. Quiet nerd type who enjoys a challenge and intelligent people. Totally dislikes the duckface, flexing, tongue sticking out crowd.
People think we are nuts to walk away from UF cause it’s UF but hard to walk from what is essentially a free ride at UCF when you add bright futures and prepaid college to both.
He also receive Full tuition scholarship ($42k per yr)from Florida institute of technology. But felt it was too small and we couldn’t really get a vibe for it at all while researching it.
Any opinions on people who turn away from “the best school in the state” . Florida is FULL of Gators, both kinds.
I am always wary of stats about the % of students who receive financial aid. A relative’s child was offered need-based “financial aid” of $4,000/year at NYU. At a cost of nearly $70,000/year even twice that amount wasn’t going to make that college affordable to most families earning $200,000. Especially if there are more kids following. (Turned that down for a merit scholarship at another university).
Also, even if you can afford it, saving $200/month for college often doesn’t go that far over 15 years. You’d have to be very lucky to have even 2 years full pay at a private college and you could end up with barely enough for a single year, even with good rates of return on that money (which aren’t guaranteed).
This discussion does remind me of debates about whether you should send your kids to private K-12 schools instead of a decent local public school. You’ll even hear people arguing that having that “better” K-12 educational experience is far more important than 4 years at college. I suspect some of the same people who argue here that Stanford or Harvard is worth paying $200,000+ versus a full ride at Vanderbilt or UNC probably sent their kids to their local public school instead of an expensive private school!
And I do think the ease in which a family can pay (or save) what is an extraordinarily high amount of money in this country probably has a lot to do with how people answer this question. Once or twice a year my kids want to see a blockbuster movie that just came out and has large crowds. There is a theater that allows you to choose your seats when you buy your ticket on-line, and the seats are big and comfortable and recline like barcaloungers. So for an extra $30 we go to that theater, don’t wait in line, don’t come early to grab and seat, and enjoy our experience. It is absolutely worth it to me, even if someone could see the same movie at the same time for half the price. If it was once a year, I’d probably even pay $60 extra (for 3 of us) for the same experience and tell you it was well worth it. Because that $60, while not nothing, doesn’t have the same value to me. But if I asked my teenager spending his own money, he would think it was crazy to waste so much money just to avoid a little inconvenience. He would never use his own money that way, but he’d happily accompany us on that moviegoing experience if we were paying.
My personal bias is probably toward agreeing with those who think paying full tuition is worth it for a school like Stanford but I understand that I am coming from a place where being able to pay that is not really the same hardship it may be for other families who would not qualify for much, if any, need based financial aid.
I have two more thoughts on the Williams thing. (1) I wonder what it feels like at Williams with half of the kids being able to pay full price and the other half paying zero to $4000 per year and (2) when a family pays full price for a school like this, they are paying for a very full experience since the students are hand picked to make interesting, diverse classes. At a state school, you may get more of what you had in high school but, at an elite private, students get to hang with kids from all states and all different backgrounds. And they are all very bright. That, in itself, would be a reason to be full pay somewhere.
I’m sort of playing devil’s advocate a little, but sometimes the choice can be full pay at Williams versus a full merit scholarship at a school like Kenyon or Oberlin or Brandeis or Case Western Reserve. There your kid would also hang out with kids from all different backgrounds who are all very bright. One could probably argue that are not quite as much the academic superstars as at Williams, but then again Williams probably accepts a higher % of their freshman class who are athletic superstars than Brandeis or Case Western.
But I know some kids at Williams who are getting great financial aid packages and there is no division that I can see between those being full pay and those who are not. I think there are probably more divisions between those who are are some sports teams and those who aren’t. (And even those are minimal - I think Williams is a terrific college!)
Good points @observer12. I agree.
I will say, though, that the stock market has been kind. While our $200/month per child deposit to 529’s hasn’t yielded a total of $280,000 per child, it has paid off significantly. When we add our pre-paid tuition plan to the mix (which can be cashed out to pay for OOS schools), the delta for what we would need for a private school is affordable for us. And I am grateful to be in this position. I guess I just wanted to put it out there that not everyone has the full amount of tuition hanging around in the bank for that purpose. Planning way ahead can make a difference. We had no idea what our financial situation would be in 2019 back in 2001 when our S19 was born. We knew saving for college was something important to us and we did what we could.
@observer12 You hit the nail on the head. We are focusing on some full pay situations but also some schools that fit our son best and offer merit. The difference might be more like $15000 per year and then we have to use that information as part of the decision making process. (I think Kenyon’s largest merit is $15 or $20k. Many other LAC’s merit scholarships are about that amount as well. None of those scholarships are gimmees by a long shot.)
Kenyon or Grinnell with a discount versus other schools full price? We haven’t the foggiest what we would do at this point. We are glad that we saved if the best fit is full price but, who knows, maybe the best fit will end up being a school that gives him money!
According to that NY Times database for Williams students by household income percentile:
18% from 1%. Full pay.
24% from 2-5%. Full pay. The 5% line is like $225k household income.
13% from 6-10%. Still mostly full pay.
That’s 55% from the top 10%. Williams median family income is $186k (90th income percentile). If half the kids get fin aid, then $186k is roughly the full pay line.
12% from 11-20%. Some fin aid.
12% from 21-60%. Larger fin aid
15% from 61-80%. No pay.
5% from 80-100%. No pay.
Takeaway #1 – even with Williams fat fin aid and all those no pays and low pays, poor kids are still quite under-represented. Even though the aid money is there for the poor kids, it is just super hard for a kid from a poor family to have the stats and everything else it takes to be Williams material.
Takeaway #2 – you can see where the donut hole is. The over-representation of wealthier families really starts to drop off once you get below the 99th percentile and the 95th percentile (although mathematically those kids are still over-represented).
Makes sense. The Williams College median income is the 90th income percentile, and 50% of the students are from the top 2-20%.
So a 2 percenter is most definitely “middle class” in the Williams College version of the world!. QED.
Our son turned down multiple full rides to attend Stanford at full pay. Thankfully, for us his 529 can fully absorb tuition for undergrad and masters. Without the 529 he would have had good options at the other schools.
Rivet – if the kid’s 529 fully covers undergrad AND grad school, why would anyone turn down any full pay school for money reasons? Because the kid, as a practical matter, has a full ride scholarship to any school he can get admitted to for undergrad and grad school.
You might pick an uber-scholarship (Duke/Robertson etc.) because of its prestige and opportunities, but that wouldn’t be a money driven decision.
@Rivet2000 yes, some of us have saved for college since the kids were born and have a nice nest egg that can cover most, if not all, of the undergrad expenses. Contrast that with some close family friends, who lived beyond their means (e.g. expensive vacations, live near the beach, etc) the past 18 years and did not save much for their kids college education and now their senior in HS can only chose schools that will give them the most FA/merit scholarships. I never want to be in that position with my kids. If my D (15yo) gets some great merit, excellent, we will consider it if the college is comparable to her top full pay schools. If not, we will use the money that we have already earmarked for college for her and her brother. What I won’t do is take out a loan or make my kids take out a loan to pay for undergrad.
Daughter chose UChicago with federal work study and ~$5,500 loan/year over full tuition waiver and $6,000 scholarship that could be used to offset room and board at state flagship (UConn). Had very frank discussions about loans. One year later and she wouldn’t change a thing.
@socaldad2002 Agree 100%
My point was that if we had not saved in 529, Stanford would have most likely been off the table because of the potential for debt. In that case the full rides would have been the only/best choice.
Graduating without debt >> Graduating with debt
@socaldad2002 things happen – job loss, divorce, you’d be amazed. I never saw it coming. I did mange about $25k each kid in a 529 (3 of them), but I got killed financially in a divorce (through the settlement I had to give my ex and having to take a lesser job as a single mother than someone with a partner and having additional expenses for the children because I was alone) and the remainder of my plan for their educational savings was derailed.
@Caugheyboymom It’s a tough choice. Last year we’re also in-state and my son turned down a $12K a year merit scholarship from UCF and selected UF (Aerospace Engineering). It still causes me physical pain when I think about it…
Nevertheless, UF is the far better school. The UCF honor’s college helps elevate some of the difference, but it doesn’t make it go away. You’ll notice that many if not all of his computer engineering classes at UCF will not be honor classes (which is the same case at UF for upper level classes). Within the college of engineering, UF has a far better student to faculty ratio, does far more research, and is better nationally recruited. The design teams and clubs are better funded and supported.
When it comes to sports, it’s what UF is known for and something it does very well. However, a lot of kids are simply not into going to the games. UF allocates 21,500 tickets to students. UF has over 34,000 undergraduates and over 50.000 students. A lot of kids don’t go to the games.
At the end of the day, finances are important. However, don’t let UCF Honor’s vs UF Honor’s be the item that makes him pick UCF (or even UF). Consider all of the factors.
Good Luck!
*$12K…with Florida Pre-paid and the new Bright Futures…not only would it have covered all of his expenses, but he could be giving ME money every month… ~X( *