Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Rising scholarship funds to rising college costs

We are in the suburbs but it's a pretty diverse population because the district is large (about 7000 graduates). We do have some super stars with international and national awards/recognition and multiple elite college acceptances. Then there are the poor kids who do end up with full rides to elite colleges. However, another big difference stems from the strong program aimed at kids who start freshman year in the middle range academically. Apparently, some of those kids end up with a ton of scholarship money. These kids have to work super hard throughout the four years and jump through multiple hoops to get to that place.

In gathering data for the scholarship reporting, the institution may ask families to disclose all award offers, both merit and needs-based, which their graduating senior has received.

If loans are part of the awards a college/university is offering a student, these student loan amounts may get reported along with grants, merit scholarships, work-study, etc, in the award offer.

Another factor driving these numbers that hasn't been brought up is the sleight-of-hand merit award that isn't a discount at all. For example, a tuition of $40k one year might change to $45k the next year, with many $3k merit awards given by the institution to qualified applicants (where "qualified" equals "just about everyone they accept who wasn't getting a full ride for other reasons").

The institution that does this not only sees more revenue per student, but they also drive higher demand, because students and parents are enamored of winning the scholarship "prize."

Well, that and reporting is optional-- not all families disclose financial awards to the school. Figure that maybe 1 in 3 or 4 don't offer up the information to begin with. So the real number would include those students, and presumably be 10-30% higher.

Our school effectively has two tiers of students-- the rock star types (mostly MG and up), and then the kids who really struggled in standard placements, for whom the school is one of last resort. Nobody can take the GED here until they turn 18.


DD applied for pretty much anything it seemed like she was qualified for, as well-- and honestly, if you are not a minority or a member of some special group (corporate kid, disabled, etc.) in some way, there ISN'T much out there. By that I mean that there just isn't a lot in terms of dollar amounts. Most of those kinds of scholarships are 200-$1000. You'd have to average 10 or 15 of those (and remember, there is a HUGE pool of kids applying for some of those because there aren't a lot of scholarships open to kids without some special hook/angle)-- to even get up into 10K award territory. Recall, also, that award amounts (even for "merit" aid) at someplace like UVA-- going with my earlier example-- only cut your "unmet need" by 10-50%, depending upon your actual household expenses and income. You could be looking at your child needing to come up with some 25 of those small scholarships in order to make the private college affordable. The other dirty secret is this-- take a peek at how many of those small scholarships are: a) renewable, and/or b) available to anyone with non-freshman standing. Most highly ABLE kids go into college with at least a few credits already under their belts, and some of them as many as a couple of years' worth. That means that as matriculating students, they are ineligible already for those "entering freshmen" awards-- even though (crazily) this is basically the kind of thing that it TAKES, now, to be earning merit awards of any kind anywhere.



DD applied for (and was awarded) a few of those, btw. The amount of work involved in applying to those is enormous. Full dossier/resume, and additional idiosyncratic material on top of it. An essay, or something else... sometimes an interview too.

High school kids who are in the high achiever ranks get there and stay there by being incredibly BUSY people. There aren't enough hours in the day, basically.

I don't mean to sound like Debbie Downer here, but I seriously caution anyone to think that a non-minority, non-2e, non-disadvantaged high school senior IS going to be able to count on much more than 1-2% coverage from sources like that. Not unless you're really LUCKY and you happen to stumble upon a corporate source or something. Those scholarship amounts haven't changed while tuition has quadrupled, and every year more students are vying for the dollars.

There's also the possibility that awards will cut "need" aid. As a graduating senior, I got an award from a local foundation. When my college found out about it, they just cut my grant (NOT my loan). I called the foundation and told them not to give me the award again the next year, and why. They appreciated that.

Seriously, that is one obnoxious practice.



Yes. I remember looking for scholarship aid and being appalled at how specific it all was:

• This award is for residents of [insert county, state]
• This award is for people who are from [insert church/civic group]
• This award is for [insert sex or ethnic group] who have overcome [insert specific challenge that was overcome]

Etc. etc. Really, after a while, I was expecting to see grants for people with size 5 feet and toe syndactyly (left side only), as in, The Bumelia Hallux Family Foundation has been giving back to the left-side-toe-syndactyly community since 1928. Almost everything I found was incredibly narrow (except for the toes, I guess), and HowlerKarma seems to be saying that nothing has changed.

I'd like to see more merit aid, with for example National Merit scholarships being larger than $2500 http://www.nationalmerit.org/faq_scholarship.php . But that's not politically correct, because merit as defined by grades and especially test scores is positively correlated with SES. Too much of it goes to students who don't "need" it, according to a FAFSA calculation or something similar.

Right-- and while I probably would argue that in a perfect world, some of that kind of thinking is probably justified, the ultimate problem here is that it has created a gap that is moved UP the income scale-- so yes, poorer families still face a lot of barriers-- BUT-- if they can overcome them, there is great financial support for higher ed...

that is NOT true any longer for middle class children. If you are in the 70th~98th percentile in income, you can expect absolutely NOTHING "need-based" whatsoever. All that you can qualify for is merit-based aid.

You can also expect that you'll be competing for dollar amounts which are unchanged since the 80's with children whose SES means that THEY are the pampered, primped, and hothoused (not to mention 'whipped') children of Tiger Parents, and are therefore far more well-suited to the task of out-competing in this particular game.

Sucks to be you, (or your parents) basically. Because your family can't afford to build orphanages in Algeria or wherever, but you also don't need food stamps.

When your EFC is estimated to be 60-70% of your household's annual gross income, and when YOU know that your household expenses actually consume something like 85-90% of it... what CAN you do with that but laugh? It's madness, but good luck telling anyone in higher ed that particular fact. Tell it to the hand.

This is why our strategy was to consider what we could actually write checks for, and then go from there. (And no, don't be silly-- that value is nowhere near what colleges seem to think that it is.)

NO aid was assumed, because mostly that's going to be correct. It certainly would be after the first year.

In response to this there are a few colleges that are "flattening" their fee structure, and officially lowering tuition. Particularly the one my daughter is attending.

My DD was "awarded" a scholarship to attend with her acceptance package as was probably virtually everyone that they wanted to attend. This wasn't really receiving any money as much as a discount on tuition. It's a bit frustrating that is labeled as awards and aids, because you never see any money.

The school decided last year to help their marketing to have one lower fee structure and in the long run eliminate all such merit based scholarships. Quite a surprise to get a letter last year to hear the tuition was going down by 20%. Not surprisingly my daughter scholarship has been eliminated and the new cost for this year is only very slightly less that what we were paying last year. ($800 or so.) This is supposedly a marketing decision on their part, trying to attract stronger students with a simpler lower tuition costs. Supposedly the school isn't taking in any less money this way. Just getting rid of the somewhat confusing awarding of scholarships.

This is just a guess on my part, but I'd suspect it also lowers some of the administrative costs associated with tracking all the scholarships - I used to work in the financial aid office at my university, and there's a ton of overhead involved with all the different awards/loans/etc.

polarbear

Would you share more information on this program, its expectations, and rigor?

Would you share your source of this information? Also what scholarships and amounts?