Should financial aid in private school be stricter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

All of the schools now use an independent company except it’s not a company - it’s literally a software program that applicants put documents into and then an algorithm says whether they are eligible for FA and for how much. However, people who are self employed are at a major advantage with this method as there are lots of ways to game the system if you have ANY business in your name that doesn’t generate a lot of income. That is how the people who game the system (they have kids at multiple other schools also receiving aid using this method) at my school do it. There are no audits, and there is no punishment if they ever were to get caught.

[Anonymous]

For me this is what I mean when I say FA should be more strict - if you are giving someone tens of thousands of dollars for free, the least they could do is have a private confidential face to face meeting with one person from the school about it. Could even be on zoom. I think this requirement would weed out basically all the bad actors. It’s one thing to scam a computer algorithm but it’s another to scam a human being. There are no human beings involved in this process now. And for those of you who are going to say why should FA recipients have to do that, the answer is because they are getting tens of thousands of dollars for it and if there is nothing shady about it, why would they have a problem with it? It would give them the chance to say thank you for this opportunity for our family also which many of them actually would like to do!!

[Anonymous]

I get aid from 2 schools within the top 7 and put my information into Clarity every year. They also pull your IRS information to verify your financial status. If you don’t want to get in trouble you would be honest. I’m grateful for the FA we get, we’re middle class and have gone out the country, but we’ve also saved too. Taking a trip for 2,000-5,000 is way less than paying private school tuition at $50k plus per child. All the families I know (teachers included) take out of state or out of the country vacations, so I’m confused. That’s just how the private school landscape is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

You can’t request what kind of people receive the FA unless you donate to a scholarship or something specifies that - like a fund specifically for financial aid for the children of faculty and staff. Many schools (Landon, Sidwell, etc) have moved to a catch all fund that includes financial aid - from a traditional annual fund which was to cover the difference between tuition dollars collected and the actual cost of educating each student. The Landon Fund can basically use your money for whatever they want - now including financial aid which I assume both benefits them bc people don’t know what they don’t know, and hinders them if a donor doesn’t want to donate to FA. So then they don’t donate to the Landon Fund because it includes FA now.

Yes and on a large scale you can choose to donate to FA or something else or nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

All of the schools now use an independent company except it’s not a company - it’s literally a software program that applicants put documents into and then an algorithm says whether they are eligible for FA and for how much. However, people who are self employed are at a major advantage with this method as there are lots of ways to game the system if you have ANY business in your name that doesn’t generate a lot of income. That is how the people who game the system (they have kids at multiple other schools also receiving aid using this method) at my school do it. There are no audits, and there is no punishment if they ever were to get caught.

Sure there are people who lack integrity and game the system everywhere, including at the most senior position in the White House. Most people are honest. I will continue to be honest because that is what I value and want my kids to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

All of the schools now use an independent company except it’s not a company - it’s literally a software program that applicants put documents into and then an algorithm says whether they are eligible for FA and for how much. However, people who are self employed are at a major advantage with this method as there are lots of ways to game the system if you have ANY business in your name that doesn’t generate a lot of income. That is how the people who game the system (they have kids at multiple other schools also receiving aid using this method) at my school do it. There are no audits, and there is no punishment if they ever were to get caught.

And that’s why financial aid should be stricter.

[Anonymous]

+10000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

What your are saying for practical purposes does not work. I understand if you donate 10 million dollars. But for humble parents like I that can only donate 5k, that doesn’t work. Ok. Forget about it. Middle class families with financial aid can still go to Europe.

Stop feeding this troll or OP.

We get it lady, you want to stop FA to MC families because you believe folks are blowing ill-gotten gains on BMWs and Europe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

What your are saying for practical purposes does not work. I understand if you donate 10 million dollars. But for humble parents like I that can only donate 5k, that doesn’t work. Ok. Forget about it. Middle class families with financial aid can still go to Europe.

Stop feeding this troll or OP.

We get it lady, you want to stop FA to MC families because you believe folks are blowing ill-gotten gains on BMWs and Europe.

correction: ^^^ because you *allegedly* believe that.

[Anonymous]

But if you are not the recipient of ill gotten FA, why would you care if they do some additional scrutiny? You have nothing to hide right? It’s just such a weird hill to die on - unless you have skin in the game of questionable FA. And on the other side, every person who pays tuition or donates to a school has skin in the game because their money is what’s being used to fund the FA. So any curiosity on that end is very warranted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But if you are not the recipient of ill gotten FA, why would you care if they do some additional scrutiny? You have nothing to hide right? It’s just such a weird hill to die on - unless you have skin in the game of questionable FA. And on the other side, every person who pays tuition or donates to a school has skin in the game because their money is what’s being used to fund the FA. So any curiosity on that end is very warranted.

Most of this thread was OP, or someone like OP, arguing that only "low income" families should receive financial aid. I never commented on scrutiny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich, golden parachutes, tax payer bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, tariffs on groceries...thank a rich person today, for our wonderful corruption proof system

Woe is me. The world so so unfair and everyone conspires to keep me down. Why can’t the someone else pays for everything I need. Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

Then just eliminate financial aid. I think it would be better. No give away to upper middle class families.

Since I can’t have it, nobody can.

It’s was sarchasm for the oligarch parent that was trolling another parent. But no. It’s very simple. Don’t give money to people that can pay for school. Very simple.

What are your criteria for who can pay? HHI, AGI, home equity, number of dependents, number of children enrolled, retirement balance, assets, or debt to income ratios? How do you know what these are for the ‘upper middle class’ families that you think are unfairly receiving aids?

This is why schools have a committee or office to determine who gets aid. No matter what they do or where they draw the line, people will complain. I'm more comfortable giving it to MC teachers to keep them longer. Some of them have been the best teachers we've had. One of our favorite teachers used this perk for her grandchildren and I thought it was a great way to reward ther tenure at the school. She was so helpful to my youngest, I think she changed my DD's life.

That’s fine for you, but would it be fine for the rest of the donors. Maybe or maybe not, because there is not full disclosure. This is not the school money, is the parents money by the way.

💯 absolutely!! It's the parent's money and they can designate how it's spent. At our school they can tick a box or fill in the blank. They can also write "I don't want teachers or MC people to receive any financial aid with this money", or, "I want all this money to upgrade the dining facilities", or, "I want this money to be spent to market in lower income communities", or, I want this money to be spent only on the girls basketball team". See how that works?

Maybe the donors should just donate to the facilities and their kids' sports - no financial aid at all. How would you find that? After all, they still get the same tax break.

That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon.

Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't.

For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school.

That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this.

Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons.

You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen.

I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision.

What your are saying for practical purposes does not work. I understand if you donate 10 million dollars. But for humble parents like I that can only donate 5k, that doesn’t work. Ok. Forget about it. Middle class families with financial aid can still go to Europe.

Stop feeding this troll or OP.

We get it lady, you want to stop FA to MC families because you believe folks are blowing ill-gotten gains on BMWs and Europe.

Yes. Only feed the posts from upper middle class parents that receive financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But if you are not the recipient of ill gotten FA, why would you care if they do some additional scrutiny? You have nothing to hide right? It’s just such a weird hill to die on - unless you have skin in the game of questionable FA. And on the other side, every person who pays tuition or donates to a school has skin in the game because their money is what’s being used to fund the FA. So any curiosity on that end is very warranted.

+1

[Anonymous]

In any case, with the impending recession and the reduction in the federal workforce, two things are likely to happen: (i) some middle-class families will no longer be able to afford private school even with financial aid, and (ii) school endowments will shrink, forcing them to admit more families who can pay full tuition.

Regardless of what anyone wants or hopes for, financial aid will become more restrictive. Many of these entitled upper-middle-class families will shift to high-quality public schools. And honestly, nothing terrible or dramatic will happen to the world if that’s the outcome. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me this is what I mean when I say FA should be more strict - if you are giving someone tens of thousands of dollars for free, the least they could do is have a private confidential face to face meeting with one person from the school about it. Could even be on zoom. I think this requirement would weed out basically all the bad actors. It’s one thing to scam a computer algorithm but it’s another to scam a human being. There are no human beings involved in this process now. And for those of you who are going to say why should FA recipients have to do that, the answer is because they are getting tens of thousands of dollars for it and if there is nothing shady about it, why would they have a problem with it? It would give them the chance to say thank you for this opportunity for our family also which many of them actually would like to do!!

As a Board Member, I can assure you, your juice is not worth the squeeze and I would encourage you to find another hobby that will stroke your massive ego.