Anonymous
05/16/2026 22:03
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school[/b] that behaves like its Northeastern.
[b]It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
You could Google before posting. Chicago is ranked 6 of best universities by USNWR. USNWR is the gold standard for ranking.
What makes you think I didn’t know that? Isn’t it why I was saying Chicago was manipulating admissions/rankings?
And before you accuse me of being jealous, all my kids attend HYPSM.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:59
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school[/b] that behaves like its Northeastern.
[b]It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
You could Google before posting. Chicago is ranked 6 of best universities by USNWR. USNWR is the gold standard for ranking.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:50
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
It is one of 5 other schools that other Ivies refer to as an Ivy+.
That must frost your gills.
Harvard
Ivy Plus and BorrowDirect
Our partnership with BorrowDirect allows physical access to our libraries to affiliates of fellow Ivy Plus institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Ivy plus is not the same as top 10. Hope you’re smart enough to understand the distinction.
It is better since there is no real or official "Top 10" list. Forbes, WSJ, US News, Times, Niche, WalletHub, etc. all purport for marketing reasons to have a top 10 list. No different than a top 10 list created by some random poster on DCUM.
There is, however, an official Ivy Plus list and that's the list used by the colleges in the Ivy Plus club. That hurts you, eh?
Hurts me how? You sound like an ass. Why did you get so defensive at this? I guess you’re a Chicago mom. Regardless, Chicago is not a top 10. It’s pretty clear in our DC’s high school only tier 4-5 students attend Chicago. It’s just not that deep.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:38
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
It is one of 5 other schools that other Ivies refer to as an Ivy+.
That must frost your gills.
Harvard
Ivy Plus and BorrowDirect
Our partnership with BorrowDirect allows physical access to our libraries to affiliates of fellow Ivy Plus institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Ivy plus is not the same as top 10. Hope you’re smart enough to understand the distinction.
It is better since there is no real or official "Top 10" list. Forbes, WSJ, US News, Times, Niche, WalletHub, etc. all purport for marketing reasons to have a top 10 list. No different than a top 10 list created by some random poster on DCUM.
There is, however, an official Ivy Plus list and that's the list used by the colleges in the Ivy Plus club. That hurts you, eh?
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:21
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
It is one of 5 other schools that other Ivies refer to as an Ivy+.
That must frost your gills.
Harvard
Ivy Plus and BorrowDirect
Our partnership with BorrowDirect allows physical access to our libraries to affiliates of fellow Ivy Plus institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Ivy plus is not the same as top 10. Hope you’re smart enough to understand the distinction.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:14
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
It is one of 5 other schools that other Ivies refer to as an Ivy+.
That must frost your gills.
Harvard
Ivy Plus and BorrowDirect
Our partnership with BorrowDirect allows physical access to our libraries to affiliates of fellow Ivy Plus institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:11
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
It’s not top 10. No top schools would manipulate the admissions game that much. It screams lack of confidence.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 21:07
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
If more schools behaved like Northeastern they wouldn't be in debt and have declining enrollment. UChicago is piling a ton of money into hard engineering and CS. That has upset a lot of the social science folks but you either adapt or die. Look at what Yale is doing with looking at expanding its engineering/CS school to Silicon Valley.
Anonymous
05/16/2026 20:03
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:All of these claims assume "reasonable assets". We earn far below dc elite school school guarantee of free tuition but we were denied aid. Didn't expect full ride but assumed we would get some aid (yes we did npc). We are not an affluent family and both parents work in non-profit. Every school calculates differently. Home value in high cost of living area and savings made us ineligible.
High home value should be included. Big difference from a 600k house and a million plus is this area. If you want a nicer house, great but that’s less savings for college. Life choices.
No! My house was purchased at 450k. Our mortgage is locked in at 2.45. We can afford this. Problem? Our house is essentially a tear down in Arlington so the theoretical value is 800k....a house we could never afford.
Does U Chicago count houses? What are "typical assets"?!
Anonymous
05/16/2026 19:53
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Confused how this is a bad thing. HYP are praised for this while Chicago is criticized? Make it make sense.
My sense is that this board really doesn't like the gamesmanship Chicago engages in.
Chicago is a top 10 school that behaves like its Northeastern.
Anonymous
05/14/2026 23:16
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
UChicago doesn't consider home equity in financial aid decisions.
Anonymous
05/14/2026 22:06
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This is great for people who don't live in places where the property values are really though. I went there years ago with an income that's (adjusting for inflation) under that mark and it would have been huge for it to be free. I could just barely afford it with the aid I did have.
Are you saying they counted your residential home value toward assets that could be used for tuition? I'm assuming you only have the one house...
Schools that count home equity don’t expect you to sell the house, but they do expect you to borrow against whatever equity you have in it.
529 plans also count against you for these purposes, including 529s designated for other children.
Basically if you’d rented and spent the money on travel instead of college savings, your kids would now be going to college for free. But if you saved, you pay.
OK, this worried me so I looked stuff up. Of course a 529 plan for the kid in college should be counted toward assets available for tuition. That's the point, not a penalty for saving. But it doesn't look like 529s for other kids are counted toward available assets for the first, at least for FAFSA: https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/does-a-siblings-529-plan-assets-hurt-financial-aid-eligibility.
Borrowing against home equity is scary (I say as someone who lives in a small, far out townhome and makes well under $250k). But it looks like this is not a FAFSA thing either and schools that use it may base expectations on comparison to income.
All of the schools being discussed here are working from the CSS profile, not from FAFSA.
Chicago's website says they use FAFSA and their own worksheet. They don't require CSS. I will admit that I don't know the details of their worksheet. Does it ask about siblings' 529 balances?
Anonymous
05/14/2026 20:09
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:This is great for people who don't live in places where the property values are really though. I went there years ago with an income that's (adjusting for inflation) under that mark and it would have been huge for it to be free. I could just barely afford it with the aid I did have.
Ironically the folks making $250k in low property value places ARE rich and living very very well.
Anonymous
05/14/2026 20:07
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Anonymous wrote:Don’t be fooled. This announcement basically says UChicago will reduce the number of poor kids admitted.
Are you Nondorf or something? How do you know for certain.
Anonymous
05/14/2026 20:03
Subject: UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000
Don’t be fooled. This announcement basically says UChicago will reduce the number of poor kids admitted.