Reply to How much do you put into your kids' 529 (college fund) annually?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]it works in both directions. smart people bring intellectual status to great schools in which more affluent but mediocre people share, so yes, they get something in return.[/quote]

Harvard, Yale and other Ivies are providing enormous financial aid to middle class and lower HHI students because they want to maintain their status as elite institutions. They're buying the best students they can find with financial aid.  There's nothing "free loading" about it.  They attract the best students and maintain their elite status. The students get a good education. [/quote]

Admissions at schools like this are need blind.  It takes a tremendous endowment and commitment to do this.  And they have a policy across the board about how much debt a student can graduate with.

You are either qualified to attend or not qualified to attend.  Once you are offered admission, they meet 100% of your demonstrated need. The amount of aid that can be supplied as loans is capped, so the rest is all grants.

The idea that dumb rich kids get in and schools have to then go out and pay whatever it takes to buy smart ones is more than a little off.  The schools that have this sort of commitment take a tremendous amount of flack for it from some alums, some of whom say, "Well, I graduated with $100K in loans, so why can't these kids?  Can't you use the money for something else?"  I think the larger share of the alumni populations tend to agree with these programs, though.

My alma mater has such a policy and I do class fundraising, so I have heard both sides of this from fellow alums.  Yet I always feel a bit of pride when the school releases its statistics for the next incoming class.  That's because the percentage of those who are the first in their families to go to college at all is usually higher or equal to the legacies.  It's about the smartest and most interesting kids all around - rich, poor, middle-class, connected, not connected.  I wouldn't want to give money to an institution that did it any other way.[/quote]

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