Is your school “too generous”

[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.

Or - maybe you could be more thoughtful about your action and earmark your donation to a specific expense - like teacher training or the arts or whatever your family values in or likes about the school. We have done this sort of earmark for colleges/universities we attended - donate to a specific department or entity within the university that we want to support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a poor fit and you should leave for someplace you like better.

Agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps it's the economy that's the issue and not the "generosity" of an institution that finds itself facing rising costs and fewer families able to pay full tuition.

+1 many schools offered financial aid to those impacted by DOGE. Maybe you should stop counting pockets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a bizarre thread. Schools provide financial aid because it's consistent with their missions to establish a student body that is as diverse as possible (socially, economically, culturally, racially). People from different backgrounds contributing to discourse is a key part of successful education.

That said, if you don't like is no obligation to support that diversity with contributions. If you don't like the concept at all, there is no obligation to send your kid to any kind of school that supports it.

We are full-pay and also make a sizable contribution. I like the school and support them in allocating the money as they see fit. The school is very diverse but also has significant wealth. I'm not losing sleep concerned that my donation is going to the wrong place. Is it possible that wealthy families are taking advantage of financial aid? Sure, same as any government aid, private charity or anything else.

Do the right thing, whatever that means for you, and move on with your life.

Oh my, no.

No school charging 60k is sincerely interested in diversity and neither are most of the families whose kids attend.

[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?

Not really, because FA is going to MC and UMC families. Your school may or may not have very poor families, but most don't, for reasons including commute, fitting in, cost of extras like uniforms, and the fact that 50% of tuition is still a huge amount of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a bizarre thread. Schools provide financial aid because it's consistent with their missions to establish a student body that is as diverse as possible (socially, economically, culturally, racially). People from different backgrounds contributing to discourse is a key part of successful education.

That said, if you don't like is no obligation to support that diversity with contributions. If you don't like the concept at all, there is no obligation to send your kid to any kind of school that supports it.

We are full-pay and also make a sizable contribution. I like the school and support them in allocating the money as they see fit. The school is very diverse but also has significant wealth. I'm not losing sleep concerned that my donation is going to the wrong place. Is it possible that wealthy families are taking advantage of financial aid? Sure, same as any government aid, private charity or anything else.

Do the right thing, whatever that means for you, and move on with your life.

Oh my, no.

No school charging 60k is sincerely interested in diversity and neither are most of the families whose kids attend.

Agree. As a middle class parent if I am paying 60k I want my kid to have the best possible quality of education. Also you can get a lot of diversity from families paying full tuition. So not sure why there is a need to sacrifice quality for diversity.

[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.

Or - maybe you could be more thoughtful about your action and earmark your donation to a specific expense - like teacher training or the arts or whatever your family values in or likes about the school. We have done this sort of earmark for colleges/universities we attended - donate to a specific department or entity within the university that we want to support.

I would like to do that, but after spending 60k it’s a bit hard on my budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why are two families with the same income not getting the same aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why are two families with the same income not getting the same aid?

Many reasons. One, the most important is the number of children attending the school. Second, many families are used to pay for things and not receiving financial aid and do not request. And the last one, many people do not declare all sources of income like grandparents paying for school and can get more financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No school charging 60k is sincerely interested in diversity and neither are most of the families whose kids attend.

Sincerely interested in your narrow definition of diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why are two families with the same income not getting the same aid?

Many reasons. One, the most important is the number of children attending the school. Second, many families are used to pay for things and not receiving financial aid and do not request. And the last one, many people do not declare all sources of income like grandparents paying for school and can get more financial aid.

Only the third one is even remotely worth getting upset about, and of course you don't know if someone's grandparents pay. I tell our public school friends that grandparents pay, but they don't actually - it just smooths some awkward conversations.

More kids = spending more on tuition, in all.
Not applying = nobody's fault but yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why are two families with the same income not getting the same aid?

Many reasons. One, the most important is the number of children attending the school. Second, many families are used to pay for things and not receiving financial aid and do not request. And the last one, many people do not declare all sources of income like grandparents paying for school and can get more financial aid.

Only the third one is even remotely worth getting upset about, and of course you don't know if someone's grandparents pay. I tell our public school friends that grandparents pay, but they don't actually - it just smooths some awkward conversations.

More kids = spending more on tuition, in all.
Not applying = nobody's fault but yours.

Just to be clear. I am sympathetic to providing financial aid. I don’t like it that much that is going overboard and cutting the budget for important parts of the education of my kids.

[Anonymous]

Which schools are making severe budget cuts in favor of financial aid, and how do you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which schools are making severe budget cuts in favor of financial aid, and how do you know?

Read the op again. I don’t know about other schools, but just our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No school charging 60k is sincerely interested in diversity and neither are most of the families whose kids attend.

Sincerely interested in your narrow definition of diversity.

Socioeconomic for starters. No way that exists when tuition is that high.