Financial Aid Fraud

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We paid 50% tuition. Kid admitted in 9th, got 1590, took absolute hardest classes, admitted to HYP. Paid for by the wealthy families who paid the $57k for 14 years for their kids to max out at 1450 after 4 attempts and head to Tulane. Crass to say but this is how it works. Know a half dozen kids like this. The whole house of cards stands up because the mediocre rich kids can't get into elite schools and the next generation won't pony up the $57k for 12-14 years if the school doesn't produce these admits.

You show zero gratitude for the private school that provided you with a large financial aid package and made your kid so successful.

You are an absolute embarrassment and should be ashamed of yourself. This was all made possible by the school community you describe.

Please pay back every penny of financial aid you received, in donations to that school. Give another child the same opportunity your child had.

No I have a tremendous amount of gratitude as does everyone I know in my position. And I donate to the school and donate extensively to the community-at-large. It's the same with athletes. Do you think they bring them in on aid for 9th grade because they care about having a top cross country team or field hockey or soccer team? No, it's be said they can get recruits into top colleges. Look, just being born to parents who can fork out $60k/year for school does not an elite student or athlete make. So schools import the kids for high school.

Perhaps one difference is that the full pay kids don’t view life as an academic hunger games style knife fight. Their success in life doesn’t hinge on HYP. They know themselves and what they want in life. They are perhaps more successful because of it, even if they do go to Tulane. You have a warped view of the world.

lol.
So what you're saying is kids who come from wealthy families don't feel the pressure to succeed or make money when compared to kids who are not wealthy and this nuanced world view is to be admired. In other words, all kids should definitely insist on being born to wealthy parents. Gotcha. Stupid middle class strivers! Next go-around they'll insist on wealthy parents.

I went to HYP myself. I don’t think you will ever understand. It really doesn’t matter. Real success is a lot more complicated.

[Anonymous]

Those of you all up in arms about aid--God help you when your kids get to college. Most top 20 schools have 50% of the student body on aid and at places like Princeton it's closer to 75%. And the stakes are higher. My DC pays $94k and has 2 roommates who pay $0. And you would never know it by looking at their wardrobes or lifestyles. The aid kids have jackets (how dare they 🙄) and Uggs and even cars and foreign travel.

Better practice taking a take a chill now before you really blow a fuse in the years to come. Here's a suggestion: stay in your own lane and be grateful for what you have!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you all up in arms about aid--God help you when your kids get to college. Most top 20 schools have 50% of the student body on aid and at places like Princeton it's closer to 75%. And the stakes are higher. My DC pays $94k and has 2 roommates who pay $0. And you would never know it by looking at their wardrobes or lifestyles. The aid kids have jackets (how dare they 🙄) and Uggs and even cars and foreign travel.

Better practice taking a take a chill now before you really blow a fuse in the years to come. Here's a suggestion: stay in your own lane and be grateful for what you have!

There’s a huge difference between how Princeton finances tuition aid and how these local private schools do it.

PU’s endowment is gargantuan. The school doesn’t really need the tuition dollars. That’s not the case with local private schools where FA recipients pay less and others pay more than they would have if there were no FA.

[Anonymous]

Princeton’s endowment is $36 BILLION and they earned a return of +11% in 2024. That’s about $4B.

Harvard’s is $57B.

That’s what funds their Financial Aid.

[Anonymous]

As we are seeing in the news every day, many a scam is aided by the attitude that no one can even ask a question about where money is actually going that is intended to help people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might help if people understood what FA is from the standpoint of the school and why they have the program.

It appears that some think it is some sort of welfare program. It is not. It is an enrollment management tool that allows the school to fill all the seats with a class that best addresses the varied needs of all the constituencies on campus.

A "no FA approach" would produce classes that include too many kids that are going to be academic and behavioral problems (Yes, rich people do have kids with academic and social problems)

Full Pay parents really wouldn't like a school filled with only full pay kids. It has to do with the quality of the student body.

The impact on the school would be fewer top students and athletic stars whose families can't quite afford full list price. (The average FA is 50% of tuition)

It has nothing to do with the benefits of rubbing elbows with the middle class or lower middle class and everything to do with sitting next to bright, motivated kids in class. And it helps keep down the number of the "entitled" in the classes.

+1. And that entitlement is on full display in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know- it bothers me too that the kids that receive financial aid still wear UGG boots. So wrong.

Same thing happens with people on welfare.

Rarely, but I would guess you’ve never seen an actual person “on welfare” in your entire life.

[Anonymous]

FA is not just an enrollment management tool. It is also charity that is funded by both donations and a portion of full pay tuition from the current families. It can be both simultaneously.

[Anonymous]

For a low interest private, I can see how financial aid would help to fill out a desirable class of students. However, at the competitive privates it seems like the FA aid program is just increasing full pay tuition for the majority of students and doing nothing else. These schools don’t need FA to attract a class full of top students..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a low interest private, I can see how financial aid would help to fill out a desirable class of students. However, at the competitive privates it seems like the FA aid program is just increasing full pay tuition for the majority of students and doing nothing else. These schools don’t need FA to attract a class full of top students..

Sure they do, not least of which because the kids who have been there since the start aren’t always the top ones. And if they don’t offer it, other schools will and scoop up the top kids. It’s no different with college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a low interest private, I can see how financial aid would help to fill out a desirable class of students. However, at the competitive privates it seems like the FA aid program is just increasing full pay tuition for the majority of students and doing nothing else. These schools don’t need FA to attract a class full of top students..

Sure they do, not least of which because the kids who have been there since the start aren’t always the top ones. And if they don’t offer it, other schools will and scoop up the top kids. It’s no different with college.

I agree it is hard to admit top kids when you are evaluating K applicants. However, for high school it is possible to identify the top performers. For competitive schools, I would argue there are plenty of top performing full pay applicants. They could let the bargain hunters go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a low interest private, I can see how financial aid would help to fill out a desirable class of students. However, at the competitive privates it seems like the FA aid program is just increasing full pay tuition for the majority of students and doing nothing else. These schools don’t need FA to attract a class full of top students..

But they don’t want a “class full of top students”.

They have other interests and varied constituencies on Campus. They want athletes, and theater people and musicians. They want legacies and families with the potential to provide significant financial support. They want to maintain their relationships with “feeder” schools that supply students year over year. They may also want some level of economic diversity and racial diversity.

Because you don’t agree with some or all of these things they are looking for in a class, you are going to be frustrated they cannot see your simple and “fair” solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FA is not just an enrollment management tool. It is also charity that is funded by both donations and a portion of full pay tuition from the current families. It can be both simultaneously.

The enrollment management aspect drives the bus! Without it there would be no FA program. The “charity” part is a secondary “nice to have”.

[Anonymous]

To those comparing financial aid at colleges to financial aid at privates: that's not really an apples to apples comparison. The government does provide you a FREE public K-12 education. It does not provide you a free college education.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t waste my energy on this at all.