Reply to Are privates that don’t offer merit aid still enrolling the best students?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?[/quote]

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

[/quote]

Where did you get your 1/4-1/3 stat?

FWIW, people have been turning down Ivies due to cost for more than 20 years. This isn't a new phenomenon.[/quote]

The gulf in price between Ivies & state schools has exploded over the past 20 years. Lots of state schools have frozen tuition or let you lock in your tuition for all four years the year you enroll.[/quote]

Yeah, but there were still kids with middle class parents turning down the Ivies in the '80s because the parents couldn't afford that tuition. The group may be larger now than then, but this isn't new though may be to you.[/quote]

True. My brother and I were among them. Also most of the top students at my middle class suburban high school didn't even bother applying to schools they knew they couldn't afford because even the application fee was too much to pay for a lottery ticket.[/quote]

Even in the 1990s there were people who turned down Ivies due to cost versus cheaper schools or financial aid at lower ranked schools. At the same time the share of the Ivy student body that was unhooked kids from professional families who could just pay the tuition or make it work with a bit of financial aid was the dominant demographic, not the minority. That has changed with the student body increasingly skewed to both ends of the spectrum - either genuinely wealthy or on full financial aid. Which is why, in a weird way, in their attempt to make the schools less elitist, they've also reinforced the elitism for the wealthier portion of their student body.

As several posters commented, state schools like UMCP used to be shrugged at but are now highly desirable. [/quote]

Perhaps reinforcing the elitism was always the intent. [/quote]

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