Reply to Most over-ranked/under-ranked LACS on USNWR?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Reed is the most underrated (and intentionally so).[/quote]

Sigh....Why is Reed 80,000 a year with no merit aid? Super sad to take it off the list. [/quote]

Merit aid is not based on the price of tuition. Merit aid offered by colleges is used to game the rankings. Reed is wholly uninterested in giving money to wealthy, high stats kids to up its rankings on USNews. Also, many, many highly regarded colleges and universities are now charging around $80K for tuition, room, and board--regardless of whether they offer merit aid or not.[/quote]

That is an unfair assessment of merit aid.  All colleges want to attract the best students they can (and climb the rankings).  Need blind financial aid is also a tool to attract students who might otherwise feel disadvantaged in the application process.  Does merit aid really target the wealthy?  All things being equal, a wealthy kid would go to the most prestigious school he gets into, not the one that is providing the largest discount.  Merit aid therefore really targets the middle class or upper middle class kid who qualifies for little or no financial aid.  In the context of LACs, a family that is borderline for need based aid would probably hesitate to shell out 80k a year (versus much cheaper in state alternatives, for example) and would be wise to do so.  So if such a kid wants the LAC experience, merit aid may be the only possibility. Should this kid be denied that opportunity?  Only lower middle class and wealthy kids should have access to it?

Your attitude is very snotty.  Schools that provide merit aid are doing a tremendous service to families in the middle and appropriately rewarding some of our country's best, hardest working kids.[/quote]

DP - it they are correct. This is what kowtowing to USNWR has done to our nation’s colleges and universities. Any college counselor will tell you tgst the very top schools don’t offer merit aid any more because they don’t have to. You must drop to second or third tier schools to get any sort of substantial award and that almost always us in exchange for something tge schools want that is reportable to USNWR. Top GpA, top SAT. Top ACT.  Two small SLACs you’ve never heard offered my kid a full ride because if his ACT score.[/quote]

It is the practice of east coast schools to avoid merit aid, largely mirroring long established Ivy League practices, which were rooted in collusion.  Many great schools outside the east coast provide merit aid and various other scholarships.  Vandy.  Duke. W&L (ten percent of the school gets a merit based full ride).  Davidson has merit based full rides.  Every school wants the best students- and providing generous financial aid in general is a way to get students in the door.  You are just framing this as kowtowing to USNWR for merit aid schools.  Yes, lower ranked schools need to be more aggressive with merit aid to attract top students.  It's only natural and there is nothing wrong with it.  Everyone at these schools is better off if they can attract a nice group of very strong students.  Duke proivdes merit aid while Bates does not- does that make Bates better than Duke? LOL[/quote]

Collusion? Please explain.
Instead of cherry picking the southern schools that you know that offer merit aid, how about doing some research:
https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/higher-education/higher-ed-watch/merit-vs-need-based-aid-what-the-research-says-2/
"research shows that the increasing availability of merit aid has largely come at the expense of low-income students"[/quote]

+1. It is cherry picking. The Johnson Scholarship is an aberration at W&L (min 4.13 gpa) and, like the Jefferson at UVA was and is designed to lure the most high stats kids that would otherwise go Ivy. Duke’s is the same but only hands out 7-8 merit scholarships  and they, coincidentally, almost always go to URM or first generation who might otherwise go Ivy. The rest pay $82-88k a year as we did. (The Jefferson is not run by UVA but by alums who wanted to offer full rides to scholars heading IVy). That’s why these southern schools do it but those scholarships are few and far between. The argument about Bates is twisted logic.[/quote]

It's not cherry picking.  Richmond also does merit scholarships.  Not offering merit scholarships is an Ivy thing that became an east coast thing.  Merit is much more prevalent outside the east coast and frankly it is probably why schools like Duke and Vandy are right up there with Ivy League schools now, if not superior.  With respect to LACs, I think having the ability to offer merit aid is a HUGE long-term advantage now that a degree costs 80k/yr.  What these need only schools have created is a situation where half the kids get almost full rides (because they are low income) and half the kids pay full price (because their parents are investment bankers).  This is not healthy and the pool of families willing to pay full price will probably shrink as we get towards 100k/yr.  Especially when there are reasonable alternatives that may rank slightly lower in USNWR (and with average test scores that are practically the same).[/quote]

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