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People give these elite colleges and universities a hard time, but I think it is mostly sensational stories with no meat. Do you know how many US schools are ne

People give these elite colleges and universities a hard time, but I think it is mostly sensational stories with no meat. Do you know how many US schools are need blind and meet full need for all students? 6. [1] I also have no clue where the story about these schools being for rich kids came from. When my wife went to Princeton a few years back it was one of the cheapest options for her! Schools all base need on the same FASA form, but then these "expensive elite schools" will do things like cover the student portion of the aid with a grant instead of loans [2]. This makes their financial aid package much better than at most schools. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission [2] https://admission.princeton.edu/financialaid https://admission.princeton.edu/financialaid

WYSIMOLWYG 11y ago
I was in the same boat. It was MUCH cheaper (> $20K/yr cheaper) for me to go to an Ivy school than it was for me to go to any of my other options (including an in-state school that people considered to be the 'cheap' option).
dalke 11y ago
What would "meat" look like to you? Suppose you were to start "a hedge fund with a university attached to it", in order to use the university's non-profit status to minimize paying taxes. What would that look like? Would you set up need blind admission, in order to provide better cover to justify the hedge fund? The article points out that the non-profit status means that "Princeton received $105,000 in tax benefits per student. Rutgers, New Jersey’s flagship public university, got just $12,300 per student in public funding." and "Among the 60 schools Schneider and Klor de Alva analyzed, private universities with large endowments averaged $41,000 in tax subsidies, compared with $15,300 in direct funding for public flagships, $6,700 for regional state colleges, and $5,100 for community colleges." Perhaps the extra $90K/year effective subsidy per Princeton student explains why Princeton was one of the cheapest options?
- nemothekid 11y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. Let's say the above were true, a non profit organization uses its tax subsidies to let students attend for free - how is that not a good thing? And how is that not something that should be encouraged?
  - vilhelm_s 11y ago
    We should compare to how much good the same money would do if it was taxed instead of left to Harvard? E.g. the German state pays $32,000 per student and degree, so foresaking $400,000 of taxes in order to educate one student seems like a bad deal.
  - dalke 11y ago
    My point was that the article provided some substance, and gave numbers which explain why a needs blind admission policy does not, on its own, justify the existing tax policy. The question you asked was addressed in the article, in statements like "In a world where the government only provides limited resources for higher education, we’re almost certainly shoveling an outsized share of them to schools that don’t need the financial help." and "we seem to have stumbled into a system that disproportionately subsidizes the educations of a tiny few." The second page tries to address what a more equitable distribution might be. For example, "Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley caused a minor uproar in higher education circles by proposing that colleges should be forced to spend 5 percent of their endowments every year, the same way private charitable foundations are." However, the author is clear that there is no simple answer, and leaves the topic hanging with "I think we’d all like to spend a little less money sending other people’s kids to Harvard." Personally, I think it should have ended with "we'd all like to spend a little less money sending people to Harvard and more money sending more people to college." As to your last question, there is a balance of factors that make it difficult to answer. If the monetary policy is such that one person gets to attend Harvard for free or 4 people get to go to a public college for free ... which should we choose, and why? (Based on the numbers in the article, and the cost of tuition for different colleges, the actual number is probably between 1:2 and 1:6.)
- euroclydon 11y ago
bradleyjg 11y ago
Harvard waives fees altogether for families making less than $65,000. More than 60% of US households have income less than that+, yet only 20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees. From this we reasonably say that Harvard is mostly a school for rich kids, despite its generosity to those non-rich kids it lets in. In this way it is similar to elite private high schools in NYC or boarding schools in New England (both of which still send many students). +This in not quite the correct referent class, as you'd want households with an 18 year old rather than all households. Still I'd be suprised if it was too far off.
- rubidium 11y ago
  20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees. That's great! >300 people a year get to attend Harvard and pay no fees. Why complain about this?
- chrisBob 11y ago
  >yet only 20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees Unfortunately I think this is mostly an issue of exposure. It is probably harder for most Andover Academy students to get into an Ivy than it would be for a similar student from a rural school, but most rural students don't know that. If the guidance counselors at high schools educated their students about their options many more of them would likely apply to top tier schools.
  - lhc- 11y ago
    Why would it be harder for a student from an elite boarding school to get into an Ivy than someone from a rural school? I would say the opposite, in no small part based on the evidence that at least supports a strong correlation.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      These schools value variety (or diversity, if you prefer) in their classes. They could fill up entirely with valedictorians from NYC, or with rowers from New England boarding schools, or with some other well-represented population, if they so chose, because every single member of those populations applies to one or more Ivies. Because they get very few applicants from farming communities, the rural South, Indian reservations, etc., those who do apply might get in with less impressive SAT scores or "extracurricular activities" than well-represented groups. If this is news to you, I suspect you haven't thought much about these issues.
adminprof 11y ago
The number 6 you mention is schools that are need blind and meet full need for both US and International Students. Most well-known universities are need blind and meet full need for US students, and partially support international students. Which I think makes perfect sense.
Nrsolis 11y ago
This is just another attempt by those who think they have a better idea of how to use someone else's money. I'd rather see us start to question the "non-profit" status of lots of hospitals that pay their management some seriously hefty salaries. http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140809/MAGAZINE/308099987 http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140809/MAGAZINE/30...
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > I'd rather see us start to question the "non-profit" status of lots of hospitals that pay their management some seriously hefty salaries. Why? The salaries are taxed. (And salaries are a tax-deductible business expense even for non-exempt organizations.) Tax-exempt non-profit status (while they are many subtypes with different qualifications) is mainly (in terms of the common feature of that status) about whether anyone has a claim on the retained earnings, not whether large salaries are paid. (Charity status within the larger tax-exempt non-profit category -- charities, in addition to being tax-exempt, have contributions that are tax-deductible for the contributor -- is largely about serving one of a set of defined "charitable purposes".)
  - Nrsolis 11y ago
    There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that some non-profit hospitals misuse their tax-advantaged status to benefit a very select group of individuals at the top of the management hierarchy. Again, if the states managed their money better, they wouldn't need to try and take the money that these educational institutions have amassed to secure their own mission. These schools manage their endowments very well because it's the only thing that provides them a measure of security in a very uncertain world. We should not be looking for new ways to hand politicians money. They've done a decidedly poor job thus far with the funds they've been entrusted with.

WYSIMOLWYG 11y ago

I was in the same boat. It was MUCH cheaper (> $20K/yr cheaper) for me to go to an Ivy school than it was for me to go to any of my other options (including an in-state school that people considered to be the 'cheap' option).

dalke 11y ago

What would "meat" look like to you? Suppose you were to start "a hedge fund with a university attached to it", in order to use the university's non-profit status to minimize paying taxes. What would that look like? Would you set up need blind admission, in order to provide better cover to justify the hedge fund? The article points out that the non-profit status means that "Princeton received $105,000 in tax benefits per student. Rutgers, New Jersey’s flagship public university, got just $12,300 per student in public funding." and "Among the 60 schools Schneider and Klor de Alva analyzed, private universities with large endowments averaged $41,000 in tax subsidies, compared with $15,300 in direct funding for public flagships, $6,700 for regional state colleges, and $5,100 for community colleges." Perhaps the extra $90K/year effective subsidy per Princeton student explains why Princeton was one of the cheapest options?

nemothekid 11y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. Let's say the above were true, a non profit organization uses its tax subsidies to let students attend for free - how is that not a good thing? And how is that not something that should be encouraged?
- vilhelm_s 11y ago
  We should compare to how much good the same money would do if it was taxed instead of left to Harvard? E.g. the German state pays $32,000 per student and degree, so foresaking $400,000 of taxes in order to educate one student seems like a bad deal.
- dalke 11y ago
  My point was that the article provided some substance, and gave numbers which explain why a needs blind admission policy does not, on its own, justify the existing tax policy. The question you asked was addressed in the article, in statements like "In a world where the government only provides limited resources for higher education, we’re almost certainly shoveling an outsized share of them to schools that don’t need the financial help." and "we seem to have stumbled into a system that disproportionately subsidizes the educations of a tiny few." The second page tries to address what a more equitable distribution might be. For example, "Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley caused a minor uproar in higher education circles by proposing that colleges should be forced to spend 5 percent of their endowments every year, the same way private charitable foundations are." However, the author is clear that there is no simple answer, and leaves the topic hanging with "I think we’d all like to spend a little less money sending other people’s kids to Harvard." Personally, I think it should have ended with "we'd all like to spend a little less money sending people to Harvard and more money sending more people to college." As to your last question, there is a balance of factors that make it difficult to answer. If the monetary policy is such that one person gets to attend Harvard for free or 4 people get to go to a public college for free ... which should we choose, and why? (Based on the numbers in the article, and the cost of tuition for different colleges, the actual number is probably between 1:2 and 1:6.)
euroclydon 11y ago

bradleyjg 11y ago

Harvard waives fees altogether for families making less than $65,000. More than 60% of US households have income less than that+, yet only 20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees. From this we reasonably say that Harvard is mostly a school for rich kids, despite its generosity to those non-rich kids it lets in. In this way it is similar to elite private high schools in NYC or boarding schools in New England (both of which still send many students). +This in not quite the correct referent class, as you'd want households with an 18 year old rather than all households. Still I'd be suprised if it was too far off.

rubidium 11y ago
20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees. That's great! >300 people a year get to attend Harvard and pay no fees. Why complain about this?
chrisBob 11y ago
>yet only 20% of Harvard's undergraduate class pays no fees Unfortunately I think this is mostly an issue of exposure. It is probably harder for most Andover Academy students to get into an Ivy than it would be for a similar student from a rural school, but most rural students don't know that. If the guidance counselors at high schools educated their students about their options many more of them would likely apply to top tier schools.
- lhc- 11y ago
  Why would it be harder for a student from an elite boarding school to get into an Ivy than someone from a rural school? I would say the opposite, in no small part based on the evidence that at least supports a strong correlation.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    These schools value variety (or diversity, if you prefer) in their classes. They could fill up entirely with valedictorians from NYC, or with rowers from New England boarding schools, or with some other well-represented population, if they so chose, because every single member of those populations applies to one or more Ivies. Because they get very few applicants from farming communities, the rural South, Indian reservations, etc., those who do apply might get in with less impressive SAT scores or "extracurricular activities" than well-represented groups. If this is news to you, I suspect you haven't thought much about these issues.

adminprof 11y ago

The number 6 you mention is schools that are need blind and meet full need for both US and International Students. Most well-known universities are need blind and meet full need for US students, and partially support international students. Which I think makes perfect sense.

Nrsolis 11y ago

This is just another attempt by those who think they have a better idea of how to use someone else's money. I'd rather see us start to question the "non-profit" status of lots of hospitals that pay their management some seriously hefty salaries. http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140809/MAGAZINE/308099987 http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140809/MAGAZINE/30...

dragonwriter 11y ago
> I'd rather see us start to question the "non-profit" status of lots of hospitals that pay their management some seriously hefty salaries. Why? The salaries are taxed. (And salaries are a tax-deductible business expense even for non-exempt organizations.) Tax-exempt non-profit status (while they are many subtypes with different qualifications) is mainly (in terms of the common feature of that status) about whether anyone has a claim on the retained earnings, not whether large salaries are paid. (Charity status within the larger tax-exempt non-profit category -- charities, in addition to being tax-exempt, have contributions that are tax-deductible for the contributor -- is largely about serving one of a set of defined "charitable purposes".)
- Nrsolis 11y ago
  There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that some non-profit hospitals misuse their tax-advantaged status to benefit a very select group of individuals at the top of the management hierarchy. Again, if the states managed their money better, they wouldn't need to try and take the money that these educational institutions have amassed to secure their own mission. These schools manage their endowments very well because it's the only thing that provides them a measure of security in a very uncertain world. We should not be looking for new ways to hand politicians money. They've done a decidedly poor job thus far with the funds they've been entrusted with.