Is your school “too generous”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

Financial aid is both charity, funded by donations, and a tool that is distributed to help enrollment management. The admissions office wants the admitted kids and if the parents are in need, they use it to reduce the financial barrier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP should make a donation earmarked for buildings, salaries, or programs. Be the change you want to see, right?

I am sorry, I don’t have much more than the 60k i pay for tuition to make a dramatic difference in how things are run in the school.

Have you applied for FA?
Or are you one of those people who's too proud to apply, but then mad other people do?

Not everyone wants to accept charity. It is a complicated issue but help is available for many through the financial aid office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

The scam part of it is when the school uses how generous it is with financial aid to market itself, knowing that at least some people are naive enough to think the financial aid is going to provide opportunities for less privileged kids. When it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, I stopped writing all checks except tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP sounds like a read crazy unicorn needing toast.

Is this a reference to something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

The scam part of it is when the school uses how generous it is with financial aid to market itself, knowing that at least some people are naive enough to think the financial aid is going to provide opportunities for less privileged kids. When it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, I stopped writing all checks except tuition.

I assume you are a troll, but how is the school's marketing itself harmful to you? Doesn't it help you if your school is appealing to academically strong kids who may need a bit of aid? Or are you saying the school should focus on admitting only wealthy family kids even if some are academically mediocre?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fun Fact: The only way the Financial Aid budget actually costs the school any money is if they reject a full-pay kid in favor of a kid who receives Financial Aid. Then there is lost revenue. But then you also have a school full of unqualified rich kids. Otherwise, Financial Aid doesn't actually cost the school any money - a teacher gets paid the same amount whether she is teaching a class full of 9 Full Pay students and 0 Financial Aid students or 9 Full Pay students and 6 students who are paying half-tuition (who bring in the equivalent of 3 full-pay tuitions)

what?

Why do airlines sell some tickets for a lower price than others? Because they want to generate revenue from every available seat. Same goes for private school financial aid. Very few students receive 100% financial aid. The others are actually providing revenue to the school, even if they are only paying $30,000 instead of the full $60,000 sticker price.

You assume the seats would otherwise be unsold. Good schools turn away qualified full pay students all the time. Not the same at all.

Some do, but others need the lower price point to fill all of the seats. We don't know which type OP's child attends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

The scam part of it is when the school uses how generous it is with financial aid to market itself, knowing that at least some people are naive enough to think the financial aid is going to provide opportunities for less privileged kids. When it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, I stopped writing all checks except tuition.

I assume you are a troll, but how is the school's marketing itself harmful to you? Doesn't it help you if your school is appealing to academically strong kids who may need a bit of aid? Or are you saying the school should focus on admitting only wealthy family kids even if some are academically mediocre?

When the school’s website boasts of the millions of dollars in aid it gives out, I foolishly assumed there would be children that aren’t from wealthy families. Turns out there aren’t very many of those, and then I learn that some? most? of the financial aid goes to wealthy families. So I stopped giving to the annual fund and felt bad that the checks I had already written could have gone to better causes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

Financial aid is both charity, funded by donations, and a tool that is distributed to help enrollment management. The admissions office wants the admitted kids and if the parents are in need, they use it to reduce the financial barrier.

If you stop thinking of it as charity, you will be much happier. I promise you the school is not in the business of charity.

You shouldn't think of your donations as charity, they are payments toward an environment you want. That can mean many things - some donors end up with board seats, or admissionfor their difficult kid - but it mostly means a smarter and more diverse student body. If you don't want what your donations are buying, that's a mismatch between you and the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

The scam part of it is when the school uses how generous it is with financial aid to market itself, knowing that at least some people are naive enough to think the financial aid is going to provide opportunities for less privileged kids. When it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, I stopped writing all checks except tuition.

I assume you are a troll, but how is the school's marketing itself harmful to you? Doesn't it help you if your school is appealing to academically strong kids who may need a bit of aid? Or are you saying the school should focus on admitting only wealthy family kids even if some are academically mediocre?

When the school’s website boasts of the millions of dollars in aid it gives out, I foolishly assumed there would be children that aren’t from wealthy families. Turns out there aren’t very many of those, and then I learn that some? most? of the financial aid goes to wealthy families. So I stopped giving to the annual fund and felt bad that the checks I had already written could have gone to better causes.

How do you know they are wealthy? Do you know their income and assets? Keep in mind also that if you are judging by house, many in our area have their downpayments paid by grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP should make a donation earmarked for buildings, salaries, or programs. Be the change you want to see, right?

I am sorry, I don’t have much more than the 60k i pay for tuition to make a dramatic difference in how things are run in the school.

Have you applied for FA?
Or are you one of those people who's too proud to apply, but then mad other people do?

I can pay full tuition. Just highlighting that financial aid in our school is eating quiet a bit of the budget for other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fun Fact: The only way the Financial Aid budget actually costs the school any money is if they reject a full-pay kid in favor of a kid who receives Financial Aid. Then there is lost revenue. But then you also have a school full of unqualified rich kids. Otherwise, Financial Aid doesn't actually cost the school any money - a teacher gets paid the same amount whether she is teaching a class full of 9 Full Pay students and 0 Financial Aid students or 9 Full Pay students and 6 students who are paying half-tuition (who bring in the equivalent of 3 full-pay tuitions)

what?

Why do airlines sell some tickets for a lower price than others? Because they want to generate revenue from every available seat. Same goes for private school financial aid. Very few students receive 100% financial aid. The others are actually providing revenue to the school, even if they are only paying $30,000 instead of the full $60,000 sticker price.

Airlines do that in order to induce scarcity which then results in higher ticket prices for the remaining seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea if the school could even enroll more full pay students, and too high a concentration of full pay students may make the school less elite and selective. If you want an elite school, you have to fill it with elite students, and there are only so many rich ones to go around. Plus the rich ones don’t want to go to school with exclusively rich kids.

There are a lot of good reasons to want a diverse student body but if you want a crass one, which seems to be the OP’s vibe, you can’t sell a story of merit based, selective admissions in a K12 if you only admit full pay students.

Yes. Many of the aid families have the exceptional kids who are subsidized by the wealthy kids in the middle of the pack. I have one of them and we know most of the others.

NP here. I am happy to have super smart kids receive financial aid. I am less happy for the family with 4 kids with a huge house and a much nicer car than mine receive aid.

These threads always come down to house envy

Look, the school sees a benefit in enticing that family to attend. There are many possible reasons but a big one is probably that 4 partial tuitions is more than your 1 or 2 full tuitions.

The school is a business. FA is how it attracts and keeps the students it wants. If you don't feel wanted, maybe look elsewhere, but don't pretend FA is some kind of scam being run by people you think look richer than you.

The scam part of it is when the school uses how generous it is with financial aid to market itself, knowing that at least some people are naive enough to think the financial aid is going to provide opportunities for less privileged kids. When it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, I stopped writing all checks except tuition.

I assume you are a troll, but how is the school's marketing itself harmful to you? Doesn't it help you if your school is appealing to academically strong kids who may need a bit of aid? Or are you saying the school should focus on admitting only wealthy family kids even if some are academically mediocre?

When the school’s website boasts of the millions of dollars in aid it gives out, I foolishly assumed there would be children that aren’t from wealthy families. Turns out there aren’t very many of those, and then I learn that some? most? of the financial aid goes to wealthy families. So I stopped giving to the annual fund and felt bad that the checks I had already written could have gone to better causes.

I genuinely think that marketing is designed to get people to apply who otherwise wouldn't - not to convey that your donations are going to the needy. It's admirable that you want them to but I really don't think that's what the school was intending to convey.

[Anonymous]

This thread is about misplaced financial jealousy. Some pay a fortune for school, and others don't, even though they may not appear poor.

The issue is not with families. It's with schools who think they can charge 60K a year per kid, and then offer generous aid to others. Such a gap in who owes what is bound to create resentment! There is no universe in which it will not. It's bad enough that colleges and universities all operate with that model, but grade schools need to do it too.

Schools should figure out a different financial model where families pay mostly all the same price. Say, 20K. For everyone. It's a lot more affordable, the middle class can swing it just like the rich. There would be a lot fewer financial aid packages necessary. And yes, schools would pay their administrators smaller salaries, which is a good thing. Administrative bloat is a bad thing. The rich families can still get together and have capital improvement campaigns.

[Anonymous]

Hasn't this system essentially "barbelled" enrollment? A large percentage of very poor, a large percentage of full-pay very rich, and nearly no middle/upper middle class families? I'm not sure it creates a healthy environment for kids when one half knows it's supporting the other half, but what do I know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hasn't this system essentially "barbelled" enrollment? A large percentage of very poor, a large percentage of full-pay very rich, and nearly no middle/upper middle class families? I'm not sure it creates a healthy environment for kids when one half knows it's supporting the other half, but what do I know?

Keep in mind that a significant chunk of middle class families pay full tuition. Those are the ones that get a bit upset when other middle class families get financial aid.