Article: 10 Ways Many Colleges Will Scam You

[Azalea]

Sorry this isn't a very optimistic article, but more good information.

 

Parents, Students Beware: The 10 Ways Many Colleges Will Scam You

 

http://www.alternet.org/education/parents-students-beware-10-ways-many-colleges-will-scam-you?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

 

Links to articles are still okay, right? 

 

Azalea

 

[FloridaLisa]

Wow.  That was insightful.  Most of it didn't affect us because my oldest three (and my rising senior) have primarily applied to state schools and depend primarily on our state scholarship program. But this was eyebrow raising for me:

 

 

 

It turns out that colleges see exactly the order the student listed the schools on the FAFSA and have become savvy at admitting, wait-listing, and packaging aid depending on the student’s ordering.

 

I can't believe there's that much coordination between all of the documents that come across a table in admissions.  I don't think I ever though about the order I was listing schools on the FAFSA, but we will now. 

 

Thank you for linking Azalea,

Lisa

[Serenade]

Thanks for linking this article!

[Elisabet1]

A&M had us putting down deposits for everything before we knew the financial aid package.  I delayed because I knew we needed financial aid. They assured us that daughter was getting top 10% scholarship as well as honors scholarship because she was in the honors college. Plus, they said, they always work to keep the honors kids at the school.

 

In the end..she got nothing but student loans and parent loans. We lost a portion of the deposits. When we spoke to them, they said no appeals. Their website said they have appeals and they meet a large portion of need. But they did not meet need at all.

[GailV]

Most of those didn't strike me as news.  

 

Also, it was filled with comments that such-and-such MAY happen.  Really, I would hope that most people look at school information and adverts with enough of a critical eye to realize that the glossy brochures don't tell the entire story.

 

[flyingiguana]

How do colleges know whether an applicant will need financial aid?  Do they have specific information?  Or are they determining this by zip code or high school attended?

 

We didn't fill out the FAFSA until my daughter had already been accepted and said she was going.  So they didn't get financial info from us -- other than possibly saying she was interested in financial aid on the admissions application.

 

Even if they know specifics like parental education and job title, they still aren't going to know much.  They won't know if that family has virtually no savings.  They won't know their indebtedness.

 

So if colleges are doing this, they must be doing it with a pretty broad brush and just hoping the averages work out.

[flyingiguana]

"students often choose colleges on the FAFSA in preferential order. Inside Higher Ed reported that Augustana College, for example, found that 60 percent of the students who list the school first on the FAFSA end up enrolling, compared with 30 percent of those who list it second, and just 10 percent of those who list it third. Like Augustana, some schools look at a student’s “FAFSA position†to determine admissions decisions—completely unbeknownst to the student. A school does this to improve its yield rate, to ensure that it is able to enroll exactly the class it wants."

 

But if colleges are making financial aid decisions based on college order, then THAT might be what is driving which schools the students ultimately go to.

 

 

[kiana]

How do colleges know whether an applicant will need financial aid?  Do they have specific information?  Or are they determining this by zip code or high school attended?

 

We didn't fill out the FAFSA until my daughter had already been accepted and said she was going.  So they didn't get financial info from us -- other than possibly saying she was interested in financial aid on the admissions application.

 

Quite often, yes.

 

It would probably be used more in the case of marginal applicants -- a marginal applicant from a $60k/year private school is probably going to be able to pay full tuition.

[flyingiguana]

Maybe I missed this, but one thing this article didn't mention is that colleges give dollar amount awards, not percentage awards.  So as the tuition/housing costs go up over the 4 years, the award covers less and less.

 

And I suspect that many colleges don't actually play a lot of the games listed in this article.  These may be happening at those highly popular schools, but the colleges I've been at seem not to engage in a lot of this nefarious, behind the scenes stuff in admissions.  They admit whoever looks qualified, do merit scholarships for many (that's the reduction in sticker price you often see), and actually do try to provide need-based aid for those who need it.  The problem is that there often isn't enough to go around.

 

The real problem here is that low/middle income kids can't just go to the local state U/college system and be able to pay the tuition with their summer job -- like we used to be able to do.  So there are a lot more kids applying to private colleges and hoping they'll get their costs covered, like they used to get them covered by govts at the state institutions.

 

The private colleges are collecting the possible windfall from the lack of funding of the state institutions -- more kids who may think that if they're going to have to borrow money anyway, maybe they'd be just as happy at a private college (or happier, if the class sizes, for example, are a lot lower). 

[G5052]

Yes, all important points.  I'm glad that this was published because I am so very aware of this having mostly put myself through college and being a community college professor.

 

I began at a private school on early decision with what I thought was a really good but fixed-price scholarship.  By the time I actually got there they had implemented a 20% increase in both tuition and room-and-board.  My parents said I had to get a part-time job for my expenses and they would cover the increase.  By the end of my second year, a family disagreement meant that I no longer had financial support from them other than paid health insurance.  I had also decided to transfer to a state school with a different major, but frankly there was no way that I could afford the private school at that point. Work opportunities on campus were somewhat limited, and without a car, working away from campus wasn't an option.  I wasn't eligible for need-based aid because I was still being claimed as a dependent, which they did all through my undergraduate years even though I was largely self-supporting.

 

At the second school, they didn't have transfer scholarships, but the tuition and room-and-board was inexpensive enough that I was able to juggle multiple on-campus jobs (plenty of work there).  I also went to my professors and asked about scholarship opportunities and explained my situation.  The second semester I got a partial tuition scholarship (thankfully a percentage, not fixed) with a bonus if I maintained a 3.5 GPA.  That scholarship and eventually getting a staff position with the university paid my way so that I never had to take out a loan.

 

But I was aware of many students who got into a bind with their scholarships.  I knew of probably a dozen who left the first college because of the issue of rising expenses, and others who lost their full-ride scholarship because of academics and couldn't afford it.

 

And last night at the college I had to fill out the standard form for financial aid, showing how many no-shows I have.  This semester 2/3 of my students have some type of federal loan or grant.  So they have some pressure on them as well.  I hope they truly grasp what that means!

[flyingiguana]

"“It used to be that you could try for that reach school and if you got in, you didn’t have to worry because everybody who got in, who needed money, got money,†the college’s financial aid office states"

 

This was definitely not the case at my reach school, all those years ago.  If it had been the norm, I'd have been at MIT, not the local state U.

 

[Teachin'Mine]

"“It used to be that you could try for that reach school and if you got in, you didn’t have to worry because everybody who got in, who needed money, got money,†the college’s financial aid office states"

 

This was definitely not the case at my reach school, all those years ago.  If it had been the norm, I'd have been at MIT, not the local state U.

 

Years ago it wasn't the case, but for many of the top schools it is true today.  Of course we're talking about those making less than 180K or so as that's generally the cut off at the most generous ones.  Truly low income students should find their need met nicely, with loans at some colleges and without any loans at others.

 

It's not easy trying to compare offers from different colleges as there is no standard way of presenting the information.  Often there's a total cost of attendance presented which itemizes everything, often including travel, books, personal expenses, etc...  And then they give you your financial aid package which may or may not include those additional costs.  And you have to read carefully and do some math as one will often not line up with the other and you have to figure out exactly what your costs will be and how much of that they expect to come from loans.   Then you have to consider the points highlighted in the article such as this will probably be the best aid the student will receive during their four years and if it's a stretch, it's only going to get harder.

[Gwen in VA]

Yes, real college, even supposedly good ones, do play these games. (even ones around the top 50 in USNWR!) My dd got tangled up in a college that did that sort of nefarious game with merit aid. YUCK!

 

Thankfully she was able to unenroll and still attend a great school. (caveat -- we don't recommend contacting a college in June that a student has declined in April asking for admission -- it causes a lot of stress!)

 

But yes, real colleges do do these kinds of games. Even prestigious LAC's that market themselves as treating the student like an individual! (And at least last year it was ranked around the top 50 LAC's nationally, so it was not a bottom-of-the-barrel college!)

 

I still see red when I think of the games they played! :cursing:

[shawthorne44]

There was one dirty trick that my niece ran into at Tech.  She got a high enough score on AP English to get credit for the class.  But, they tried to put her in remedial English.  It was the default starting point (a class that you have to pay for, but can't apply to your degree).  This had been before she'd taken the placement test, which there was a charge for.  

[Caroline]

I'm confused. Who is 'they'? And which Tech? Remedial English is the default? Not freshman English?

 

There was one dirty trick that my niece ran into at Tech. She got a high enough score on AP English to get credit for the class. But, they tried to put her in remedial English. It was the default starting point (a class that you have to pay for, but can't apply to your degree). This had been before she'd taken the placement test, which there was a charge for.

[shawthorne44]

I'm confused. Who is 'they'? And which Tech? Remedial English is the default? Not freshman English?

 

 

I was a bit boggled too.  Texas Tech.  As a new Freshman, remedial English was the default, and anything else required a fight.  Even for my niece who got a high score on the AP test.  

It seems like a way to increase the per student cash flow.  

[Caroline]

I was a bit boggled too.  Texas Tech.  As a new Freshman, remedial English was the default, and anything else required a fight.  Even for my niece who got a high score on the AP test.  

It seems like a way to increase the per student cash flow.  

 

That is strange. Thanks for letting us know which Tech. 

[Azalea]

That is strange. Thanks for letting us know which Tech. 

 

Yes, I also appreciate knowing which Tech. Let's name the names and talk about money!!!

 

I dropped my daughter off at a test prep center this morning for the first time to take a  practice SAT. $120 just to take the practice exam, with a $75 discount. The counselor there interviewed me about my daughter and her goals. The counselor is surprised that I don't have any private colleges on our wish list, Guess I might have to come up with a few, but I have run the net price calculators and I'm just not interested in spending $60k for undergraduate especially since my daughter wants graduate school as well. 

[flyingiguana]

I sure hope colleges are not using our zip code to determine financial aid.  Maybe we live in a very odd zip code.  Except for the super wealthy, I'll bet we've got representations from just about every income bracket.

 

So when I think about using zip codes for this sort of thing, I kind of scratch my head in confusion.

 

Maybe most other zip codes are more homogeneous.

 

And even the pricey private schools around here let in a good number of scholarship students. 

 

So I still don't understand how a college admissions office could know well enough just from a few markers.  I can't imagine most colleges could do this and still be able to fill their freshman class.  It would only work with colleges that get too many applicants  -- who can afford to turn away a significant number of kids who would have been happy to go there.

 

I know the college where I work would be sunk if they tried this kind of strategy.  And I suspect that most colleges are in the same boat as the one I'm at. 

[Wheres Toto]

The combination of our zip code and my oldest's high school would certainly have people scratching their heads.    :tongue_smilie:

 

We live in a town with median household income of $102,000

The town we share a post office with has a median household income of $69,000

The town with the high school has a median household income of $189,000 (we have a send/receive relationship with the town).

 

Not sure what that information is supposed to tell someone.