The college in New York State had once seemed like a perfect fit. The school’s lacrosse coach was excited about his West Coast recruit, and the girl, after a visit, became enchanted with the school. The college also appeared to be a perfect match financially since it states that it meets 100% of a student’s financial needs.
But here’s the part of the story that will make you ill. The school let it be known that the student would be admitted if she withdrew her financial aid application. In other words, the teenager was going to get squat from a school that’s been showered with kudos for its generosity to needy students. When the teenager withdrew her aid application,
the school didn’t have to award her a financial aid package because technically she was no longer asking for it.
Despite the school’s outrageous conduct, the girl enrolled at the
school for the start of the 2007–2008 school year. How she and her
mother will survive this financial body blow is anybody’s guess.
Up until now, you might have thought that all that’s necessary, if
you qualify for financial aid, is to find the colleges and universities with
the biggest hearts. Well not exactly. While the previous story is an
extreme case (I hope), you need to steel yourself to be somewhat cynical
of the financial aid process. The more you know about the practices
of financial aid offices, and how they have evolved, the better
your chances that you won’t end up overwhelmed with debt. Knowing
how the system works can also help you find affordable and wonderful
schools that on the surface may seem far too expensive.
Here is one of the most important realities that you need to know
about financial aid: Colleges don’t treat every deserving family equally.
You could have two applicants who were both raised by single mothers
and who were both offered a spot in a school’s freshman class. One
of the kids is an “A” student with an above average SAT score, and the
other is an “A-” student with an SAT score that’s just a few measly
points lower. According to the aid formula, both students need the
same amount of money to attend. In this scenario, however, schools
are often more likely to give a fatter aid package to the child with the
better academic resume.
It’s not hard to understand why this happens regularly. A college
would prefer to fill its classes with “A” students rather than “A-” students.
It’s easy to argue that a high school senior who graduates with
a 3.8 grade point average (GPA) is no more likely to become a successful
adult than a student who leaves high school with a 3.6 GPA. Colleges
obviously know this. Many schools, however, are obsessed with
assembling ever more accomplished freshman classes on paper so
they can elevate their rankings in the college guide books. And this
desire can influence who gets the cash.
Colleges have to make choices because most of them don’t have
the kind of endowments that will allow them to meet the financial
need of every child who gets accepted. If a school without a hefty
endowment did provide enough money for every deserving applicant,
the money would have to be tapped from elsewhere, which means
there might be less cash to reduce class sizes, buy journals for the
library, increase faculty pay, and hundreds of other needs.
At the same time, when word circulates about a particularly generous
school, more teenagers who require a lot of assistance are likely
to enroll. And that leaves fewer slots for affluent students, who are
needed to pay the full fare. What’s more, if a school is determined to
help as many teenagers requiring assistance as possible, it might not
offer merit money, which is awarded regardless of need to richer kids,
who might go elsewhere if they don’t get a break on their tuition.
In an article in its alumni magazine, Reed College in Portland,
Oregon, commiserated with the financial aid dilemma Macalester
College faced recently. More than 70% of the students attending the
liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota, were receiving financial aid
under its “need-blind” policy, which doesn’t factor in a student’s ability
to pay. But the financial strain became too much, and the school
was forced to abandon it. “We were trying to find the right balance
between quality and access,” a Macalester administrator was quoted
as saying. “Access is a really important value, but at some point you
have to ask—‘access to what?’”
When money becomes tight, colleges routinely offer some applicants
aid packages that could only be described as moth eaten. This
phenomenon happens so often that it has its own name—gapping.
The school will accept a student, but the financial aid award is so low
that the applicant will usually attend a different school. In some cases,
the gap between what a family can afford and what the school offers
can be tens of thousands of dollars. Other times, a child might be put
on a financial aid waiting list.
Often the high school seniors in this category are middle-class and
low-income students who are in the bottom half academically of the
crop of teenagers who were accepted. Not all these students take the
hint. Sometimes these kids decide to load up on crippling debt to
attend their dream school. Before that happens, a school’s financial aid
officer will sometimes call the family to try to talk them out of committing
financial suicide.
Is there something you can do with this insider intelligence to
increase your chances of financial aid? Yes there is, and you’ll find out
in the next chapter.
Action Plan
If a school wants your child, the financial aid package will often
be bigger.
Source: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price
