Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sort of by definition, if 2/3 are receiving aid, 2/3 are low income or poor. Also don’t forget about international students who are usually not receiving much aid (except t at a few schools) and they are 10 percent. So that could leave 30 pct of US students not receiving aid- maybe half of them are more or less just over the threshold (parents taking out loans) and half are well to do. That means a campus could be 60 percent poor and like 10 percent rich.

Begs the question- why would a rich person be excited to send their kids to a school with primarily poor kids who are there to try to use rich kids for their connections?

Receiving aid =/ low income or poor

A family making $160k isn’t low-income or poor by any definition, anywhere.

It sort of is if you look at the cohort of families where the primary breadwinner is in their 40s or 50s. Definitely closer to the median there. Not poor in the sense of on the cusp of starvation but scraping by, things are tight, and spending 80k a year on a liberal arts education is ridiculous

Get out of your bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

The schools love to say that diversity is better for the educational experience. I like to view it as Bowdoin deciding to sprinkle in some poor and middle class kids so that the kids they cater to have a better experience, just like serving better food in the cafeteria or offering renovated dorm rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

Yet 2/3 of students are receiving need based aid. So “primarily” doesn’t seem to work. And as I mentioned international students (typically full pay) are 10 pct. Doesn’t leave a lot of full pay domestic students. And half of them may not qualify for aid but parents are struggling to pay for it, borrowing against 401ks etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

The schools love to say that diversity is better for the educational experience. I like to view it as Bowdoin deciding to sprinkle in some poor and middle class kids so that the kids they cater to have a better experience, just like serving better food in the cafeteria or offering renovated dorm rooms.

It does feel like that. "Schuyler met an absolutely wonderful African-American girl from Queens in her dorm this year. We are so thrilled with her experience. Lacrosse is going well too. Say is your husband still at Blackstone?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

Yet 2/3 of students are receiving need based aid. So “primarily” doesn’t seem to work. And as I mentioned international students (typically full pay) are 10 pct. Doesn’t leave a lot of full pay domestic students. And half of them may not qualify for aid but parents are struggling to pay for it, borrowing against 401ks etc

Idiots in bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top LACs with big endowments have generous aid too though.

I guess low income is the new privileged. If your family makes 80k a year, full ride. If they make 200k, you’re screwed.

Exact opposite. How many kids from families making $80k do you think are getting into top schools?

How is the $200k family more screwed than the $80k family? If the latter has it so good, the fox is simple for the $200k family. Live off $80k (if you tho k they have it so good) and you save $120k for college per year. Fully funded in NO TIME! There! Solved it for you.

Saving this comment so I can copy & paste it every time these stupid threads come up.

You know, you don't have to read them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

Yet 2/3 of students are receiving need based aid. So “primarily” doesn’t seem to work. And as I mentioned international students (typically full pay) are 10 pct. Doesn’t leave a lot of full pay domestic students. And half of them may not qualify for aid but parents are struggling to pay for it, borrowing against 401ks etc

2/3 "Need based" for a $80K/yr school is basically saying most people can't afford it.

I would not say it's "for the poors", but it's definitely not for donut whole families unless the family is really willing to tighten their belts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

Yet 2/3 of students are receiving need based aid. So “primarily” doesn’t seem to work. And as I mentioned international students (typically full pay) are 10 pct. Doesn’t leave a lot of full pay domestic students. And half of them may not qualify for aid but parents are struggling to pay for it, borrowing against 401ks etc

Idiots in bolded.

Lol, you think it's a bad idea to wipe out your retirement assets to buy your daughter a $320k Bachelors degree in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL. OP, they are for rich people, with a smattering of merit-based poor and middle-class famliies so the rich can feel like they also made it on merit.

Yet 2/3 of students are receiving need based aid. So “primarily” doesn’t seem to work. And as I mentioned international students (typically full pay) are 10 pct. Doesn’t leave a lot of full pay domestic students. And half of them may not qualify for aid but parents are struggling to pay for it, borrowing against 401ks etc

Idiots in bolded.

Lol, you think it's a bad idea to wipe out your retirement assets to buy your daughter a $320k Bachelors degree in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr?

DP.. yes. I assume PP is agreeing with "idiots in bolded". I think taking out $150+loans for college is a bad idea, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top LACs with big endowments have generous aid too though.

I guess low income is the new privileged. If your family makes 80k a year, full ride. If they make 200k, you’re screwed.

Exact opposite. How many kids from families making $80k do you think are getting into top schools?

How is the $200k family more screwed than the $80k family? If the latter has it so good, the fox is simple for the $200k family. Live off $80k (if you tho k they have it so good) and you save $120k for college per year. Fully funded in NO TIME! There! Solved it for you.

Saving this comment so I can copy & paste it every time these stupid threads come up.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many low-income kids are from families that can afford to live in a “good” school zone or attend private k-12, even if some FA is offered? How many poor kids do you think went to Kumon or Mathnasium? Or got to participate in club sports? I could go on.

And that is why the elite unversities have holistic admissions and will take students who might not have 15 APs, a 4.9+ gpa and 1580+ SAT. Poor kids are disadvantaged for the first 18 years of their life and majority do not have access to same education to achieve the high level. So those that do and/or come close do it thru hard work and dedication only. These kids are smart and will go far given the right situation (ie. college that they can afford)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many low-income kids are from families that can afford to live in a “good” school zone or attend private k-12, even if some FA is offered? How many poor kids do you think went to Kumon or Mathnasium? Or got to participate in club sports? I could go on.

And that is why the elite unversities have holistic admissions and will take students who might not have 15 APs, a 4.9+ gpa and 1580+ SAT. Poor kids are disadvantaged for the first 18 years of their life and majority do not have access to same education to achieve the high level. So those that do and/or come close do it thru hard work and dedication only. These kids are smart and will go far given the right situation (ie. college that they can afford)

No one has a problem with SES based holistic admissions. It's the race based one that some people do not agree with. There are low income kids from all races, btw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The opposite is true,

according to the new research by Stanford economist Raj Chetty and co-authors.They show that 14.5% of students in America’s elite universities (eight Ivy League colleges, University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, and Duke) are from families in the top 1% of income distribution, compared with only 3.8% from the bottom quintile. That’s a dramatic overrepresentation of the richest Americans.

But think about it. We are talking about a 320k education. Why would the very poor and the very rich be equally represented? Also there are many moor poor people than very rich people so while very rich people are of course over represented they seem to be very much outnumbered by lower income people on campus.

? You have a 4x better shot at bumping into someone whose family is in the top 1% than in the bottom 25%. How are they “very much outnumbered”?

Because there are more bottom quintile kids than top 1% kids. My claim is not that the average poor kid has a better chance of being a Harvard student than the average rich kid, it's that there are more of them on Harvard's campus than rich kids.

Are we just talking past each other? Lets say you are on Harvard's campus and you run across 100 kids. According to the study cited, you will run into 14.5 kids whose families are in the 1%. You will run into 3.8 kids whose families make in the bottom quintile. Yes, there are many more kids from the bottom quintile in the general population, but not on harvard campus. Thats the whole point. What point are you trying to make?

Bottom quintile is too extreme. Maybe bottom half would be more relevant. By poor I don’t mean homeless or close to it. I mean people who are scraping by and who don’t really have much by way of assets.

Ah so you weren't responding to the data presented. Can you then link to what data you are referring to? The data that shows that the bottom half is disproportionately represented on elite campuses? I don't have the data either, but I would bet your hypothesis is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t know poor people make $150k or $100k.

Yeah, that's us, and I consider us middle class. Do the $200k+ people really think they are middle class? Maybe UMC at closest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many low-income kids are from families that can afford to live in a “good” school zone or attend private k-12, even if some FA is offered? How many poor kids do you think went to Kumon or Mathnasium? Or got to participate in club sports? I could go on.

And that is why the elite unversities have holistic admissions and will take students who might not have 15 APs, a 4.9+ gpa and 1580+ SAT. Poor kids are disadvantaged for the first 18 years of their life and majority do not have access to same education to achieve the high level. So those that do and/or come close do it thru hard work and dedication only. These kids are smart and will go far given the right situation (ie. college that they can afford)

They also need something to spend all that endowment money on. In a sense, they need to bend their admissions criteria to accommodate kids from low income backgrounds who they need to admit because they actually NEED to spend all that money.