JanetC Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 The blogger is in charge of enrollment management at DePaul university (Catholic school in Chicago) Interesting post for those who were debating who gets aid and who doesn't on other threads... https://jonboeckenstedt.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/the-death-of-merit-aid/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 Um. Stanford and Harvard are still awarding aid based on need, they are just being more generous in defining who has need than many places. They can afford to do this. Schools that award merit aid do so to attract top students who might not attend otherwise. Harvard and Stanford have no need to do this. I dunno, that post didn't make much sense to me. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 Huh? The article did not make sense. The aid offered by Stanford and Harvard is need based - it is based on a certain level of family income. Those schools don't give merit aid because getting accepted is already the reward for merit and everybody who gets in would deserve "merit" aid. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 The article doesn't make much sense to me either. First issue with financial aid is to realize that "need" is defined by someone else's formula not your family's full financial picture or comfort level. I may think I need x in the bank for retirement, potential lay off or low year of commissions, or to live out my dream of sailing around the world when the kids leave home. Those who define "need" aren't concerned with whether I can live on what they deem ok for a family my size or for my family. It can be difficult for many folks to pass the "need" test. Then there is the other kind of need-the kind where our family decides that loans aren't an option, nor is a second mortgage, cutting to deeply into savings etc. to make up the EFC. Our family has need-just not the kind recognized by a financial aid formula. Merit based aid allows a school to offer assistance to those they wish to recruit for scholarship and citizenship reasons with out having to prove that the recipient passes a financial test. Just as an athletic scholarship pulls in great sports talent. If they want your kid to enroll and you can't pass the financial aid test they might offer what is termed "merit" aid to help persuade you to bring those $ you do have to spend to their institution. Merit aid can help attract those student that fall in the gap between wealthy enough to afford college without impacting their family's finances and those who can prove on a FAFSA they are allowed "need" based aid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 The article as written seems like circular logic. I am not sure what point he was actually trying to make. What I took from what he wrote I am pretty sure is not what he intended. ;) What I do think is highlighted is the entire college loan/grant/need-based aid process. Take the same scenario, $125,000, and change the name of the schools. Suddenly you see a radical shift in who supposedly has gobs of cash to pay for college. According to the government formula, the EFC for that same income for a family of 4 with minimal assets is ~$23,000. So at top schools those students are "needy" and pay $0 and at your typical state school they are "wealthy" and are full pay. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted April 12, 2015 Author Share Posted April 12, 2015 I would agree that the essay does not have a strong thesis statement, but I saw a lot of food for thought.... 1. There is an argument that when colleges give aid beyond EFC (one definition of merit aid) then those who are "truly needy" are missing out on their opportunity to move into the middle class. Stanford is defining truly needy by it's own definition, not the FAFSA's, but it is still merit aid by the above, narrow definition. The term is going to start dying if more colleges do this. 2. The quote, "people believe 'need' is intelligently and fairly codified. It’s not." is something people who haven't been through the college FA process and gotten nonsensical offers on irrational EFCs yet really do not understand. Seeing it directly from a university vice president is a big step towards getting some honesty in the FA process. 3. The arguments about whether the "pot" of "need based" and "merit based" money is divided "fairly" is meaningless. As he says directly, institutional aid is mostly "contra revenue." Again, not a surprise if you have been doing the research, but seeing that level of honesty from a university higher up in a public blog is interesting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 1. There is an argument that when colleges give aid beyond EFC (one definition of merit aid) then those who are "truly needy" are missing out on their opportunity to move into the middle class. . How so? The "truly needy" kid who got admitted to Stanford already has no, or almost no, EFC and gets a free ride. How does extending this opportunity to middle class families make this kid miss out on anything? (And I disagree that more generous need based aid is "merit" aid - those are two completely different things) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted April 12, 2015 Author Share Posted April 12, 2015 How so? The "truly needy" kid who got admitted to Stanford already has no, or almost no, EFC and gets a free ride. How does extending this opportunity to middle class families make this kid miss out on anything? (And I disagree that more generous need based aid is "merit" aid - those are two completely different things) I think it's one thing at a rich school like Stanford (all those wealthy Silicon Valley connections!) and another at DePaul, where the author is a VP. DePaul (and most schools) need a certain number of "rich kids" to backfill revenue for the need and merit aid they offer the "other" kids. I agree that "more generous need aid" and "merit aid" are different things, but I agree with the author that the lines are blurry and getting blurrier as schools have to do their own things as the Federal formulas and aid grants are not realistic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In The Great White North Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 It's all smoke and mirrors. If the FAFSA is involved, it is need based aid. Period. All the other info (grades, test scores, etc) just help the college select which of the "needy" they are going to give it to. Calling funding for the gap between the EFC and actual costs merit aid is: 1. proof positive that their EFC is a pipe dream 2. another attempt to make students/families feel good (similar to grade inflation, everyone gets a trophy sports, etc.) True merit aid is based on merit and nothing else. (ie. you do not have to fill out the FAFSA at all) I am not aware of very much true merit aid remaining in the American college system. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 Many schools have a handful of high dollar scholarships that are truly merit based aid. However-universities are a business and no big name school, like Stanford or Harvard, is hurting for highly qualified students who would enroll if admitted and pay full price. Therefore, they have no motivation to offer much pure merit aid. Doing this isn't in their (the uni's) best interest. They want to save their funds for attracting students with that gap between aid and EFC who might not enroll without some form of aid. No school wants to hand their money (in large quantities) to students who can pay full price. I also suspect that once a FAFSA is involved in the decision and federal funds are involved-you could be disallowed from calling aid that isn't warranted by the FAFSA "need based aid". Therefore, it becomes merit aid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 I thought the logic of the article was sketchy at best, but I do agree that the line between need based and merit aid at the very tippity top institutions is a bit blurry. Merit aid is money the college gives to attract the students it wants for academic, athletic or diversity reasons. What students do Stanford and Harvard need to attract to improve their diversity? Poor ones!! I was one of those students: middle class, rural, incredibly academically gifted. Between need based and merit aid I was offered a full ride at the University of Michigan. I'm betting most students who are accepted to an Ivy or Ivy-like school have safety schools offering full rides or nearly so. For a poor or middle class student, a full ride is awfully tempting and if the Ivies want to lure in some of those poor students then they need to offer a very good deal. MIT offered me more than my calculated need in "need based" aid. Granted, we still had to pay a lot, more than we could "comfortably" afford, but actually less than many second tier schools would have cost. By doing so, MIT knocked all of my match schools out of the running - why would I pay more to go to my second or third choice? The decision ended up being between UofM for free or MIT for not free, but uncomfortably doable coming out with reasonable loans. I chose MIT, and I can understand the logic in viewing the extra money they gave me above and beyond my demonstrated need to be a form of merit aid that they used to round out their socioeconomic (and perhaps gender) diversity. Wendy 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 There was a recent story on NPR about the origin story of FAFSA and why they don't bother to simplify it. One recent study found that some 2 million students who would qualify for federal Pell Grants don't even fill out the form. These days, lots of politicians are talking about shrinking the FAFSA. One bipartisan group of senators has proposed a form with just two questions: "What is your family size? And, what was your household income two years ago?" That raises the most important question: Is that even possible? "The answer is 'No, it's not possible,' " says Justin Draeger of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 If they want your kid to enroll and you can't pass the financial aid test they might offer what is termed "merit" aid to help persuade you to bring those $ you do have to spend to their institution. Merit aid can help attract those student that fall in the gap between wealthy enough to afford college without impacting their family's finances and those who can prove on a FAFSA they are allowed "need" based aid. I'm confused by the bolded statement. At all of the schools my kids applied to, merit aid was offered long before any financial aid information was sent in. We had scholarship decisions only a couple of weeks after admission decision. Any aid offered after that was need-based (which was more or less non-existent.) I guess you could call the grant they gave my college freshman after we appealed the financial aid decision (a gap of $20,000 between COA and EFC left us scratching our heads) an incentive to pick this school. I don't know if that money is forthcoming for future years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'm confused by the bolded statement. At all of the schools my kids applied to, merit aid was offered long before any financial aid information was sent in. We had scholarship decisions only a couple of weeks after admission decision. Any aid offered after that was need-based (which was more or less non-existent.) I guess you could call the grant they gave my college freshman after we appealed the financial aid decision (a gap of $20,000 between COA and EFC left us scratching our heads) an incentive to pick this school. I don't know if that money is forthcoming for future years. Not everywhere announces merit aid prior to need based aid nor are all admissions and scholarship committees need blind. That's all. Therefore, for those students who may not qualify financially for more aid but for whom financing university will still be difficult they can offer aid without attaching the "need" label to it. Merit aid can be used as a recruiting tool for kids who don't have demonstrable "need". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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