Is there any correlation between income and merit aid?
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Anonymous
I was unclear. I wouldn’t say bitter. I’d say mildly irritated. |
Anonymous
| Yes. Sophisticated enrollment management knows that a 20k merit award moves the needle a lot more for families making 200-300 than for families making 2-3mm. Merit is used for yield so .. of course it matters. |
Anonymous
Do you really think poor kids shouldn’t be able to go to college? That’s a fascinating take. You are a villain. |
Anonymous
You think a family making $400k is poor? |
Anonymous
Them you move to where there are. Plenty here, just not where you want to live. So, why do you deserve aid when you choose to live in a million dollar house? |
Anonymous
Most people do that commute to afford things like college. Since you don’t have the commute you have that time to get a second job. |
Anonymous
No, of course not. Do you really think they are too good for community college or public institutions? They can only go T20? |
Anonymous
What? No. Read the thread. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Poor families can’t pay full freight at public universities, either. I know because I grew up poor, got financial aid at a UC, and took the rest out in loans that I paid off myself. There’s no way my parents could have paid even the $12k per year or whatever it was back then. I’m lucky enough to be a comfortable earner now and I would never object to low-income kids being subsidized at whatever school my kids end up attending. And no, I don’t think that all low-income, high-achieving kids ought to miss out on the chance to go straight to a 4-year school. |
Anonymous
OK, so you don’t think poor kids belong at private universities or especially top universities? |
Anonymous
Bingo! None of these folks are moving zip codes and inhabiting the homes of the folks on full or near full aid. They just aren't. Believe you me - no one I knew in college was clamoring to live in a 2.5 BR, 1 BA ramshackle farmhouse where four siblings had to share 1 BR. They just weren't. |
Anonymous
Those are the "meets full need" institutions. But most poor kids are not even in the running for them, so no worries. |
Anonymous
| The colleges my daughter applied to had no idea what our income was (filled out zero financial forms) and she was awarded a lot of aid at many of them. |
Anonymous
That sounds well and good, but tell me where your feelings would land under an alternative fact pattern: Your three kids have higher tests scores, more rigor in their transcript, greater depth and breadth on their ECs, and the same GPA - but because of their apparent misfortune of attending a highly competitive public HS, their college applications are overlooked for kids with lower test scores, less rigor on their transcript, lesser depth and breadth on their ECs, and the same GPA at a much less competitive public HS where they are the “big fish in small pond”. So the low income kids are often starting out at better institutions than your kids. Then, you’re looking at paying an average of $90K per year for each of your three kids to go through, let’s say Duke, Hopkins, Macalester. All three would have been viable at T10 schools but for the fact that the HS cohort they were compared against was exceptional. Class of 2027, Class of 2029 and Class of 2031. Over that 8 year period, you’ll be incurring a cost of $1M+. The low income kid is paying nothing - again, often at better institutions leading to better career prospects, typically. Are you really cool with the process as it stands now, under that kind of a fact pattern for you? |