6 ms·

The main fallacy of the whole rising-college-tuition thing is that students don't actually pay "sticker price". The actual cost is much less: http://www.bloom

by muzz 14y ago

The main fallacy of the whole rising-college-tuition thing is that students don't actually pay "sticker price". The actual cost is much less: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/misconceptions-101-why-college-costs-aren-t-soaring.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/misconceptions-101-...

pc86 14y ago
Paying sticker on a college education is like paying above sticker on a car. The college I went to was a private institution and had a sticker price of $35k my freshman year and over $40k my senior year. Room and board and textbooks were additional. I took loans for everything not covered by scholarships or grants and I owe barely $20k.
snogglethorpe 14y ago
> The actual cost is much less ... often. OTOH, If you don't fit the mold, you may be screwed... I've known any number of students who actually were paying full price for tuition at top-tier private universities [to the tune of $50,000/year] despite being quite poor. Some took out massive loans, others did full-time work and attended as best they could.
- muzz 14y ago
  in the average case. sure, for every outlier on the high side it's likely there's an equally-outlying data point on the low side, etc.
- brianchu 14y ago
  What do you mean by "quite poor?" To my knowledge, if they're poor, they're poor. I don't know anyone who was legitimately poor that did not qualify for financial aid. EDIT (reply to below): Your point about the estranged parent is valid; a wealthy parent refusing to pay is the only case in which a "poor" student does not get much financial aid. Foreign students are not entirely excluded from financial aid, though they get much less. Studying abroad is a luxury, and the case of a poor foreign student whose family lives in the US who chooses not to attend an affordable state/local college is very much an edge case. By and large, if your family is poor, you qualify for financial aid.
  - muzz 14y ago
    At Stanford, it's a policy that if your family makes less than $100,000/yr, they waive tuition. At Harvard and some other Ivies, they do it at $60,000/yr.
    - mjmahone17 14y ago
      At Brown, that is the case as well (at 60k/yr). And yet, there are federal and school policies in place to prevent students from paying less than their fair share. I know students whose families earn about 25-30k/yr, who have siblings, and are still expected to pay ~15k/yr. My family's Expected Family Contribution last year was something like 20k (which is more than they were able to pay, so I still had to go into debt). However, due to the fact that I earned about 10k at an internship the previous summer, despite my parent's income remaining constant, our EFC increased to 28k. And, due to my unusually high income, I was eligible for about 4k less in subsidized federal loans (which I've had to max out). Meaning I've had to rely on private loans to make up the difference this year. While I'm forever grateful for the aid I have received, there are still waaay too many cracks students can fall through.
      - Crake 14y ago
        Yup, gotta love being punished for working hard. :/ It also especially sucks when you have a high EFC and your parents are only willing to contribute, uh, $0.
    - Crake 14y ago
      Unfortunately, a policy that is rarely actually followed. It's amazing how private colleges will bend over backwards to find you have an EFC that requires them to provide little to no financial assistance.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    Er, "no significant savings, income, or other resources to draw upon." The "system" generally tries to support poor people, but there are an awful lot of rules in place to try and make sure people pay their "fair share" and prevent cheating. I think usually those rules have more or less the desired effect, but like any rules, they can be rather blunt instruments, and end up hurting people as well. Some examples: + Foreign students are often ineligible for grants and aid (even those from the university itself), no matter how poor they and their parents are. [There are exceptions, e.g. Harvard (which has lots of money and extremely high admission standards), but my experience is that they are very rare.] + In many cases a parent's income is considered in calculating the student's resources, even if the student has no contact with or leverage over the parent and that parent is not willing to pay anything. The reason for such rules is obvious: to avoid parents pretending to be estranged in order to avoid paying their fair share. However it still can end up hurting students who really don't have any choice in the matter...

by muzz 14y ago

pc86 14y ago

Paying sticker on a college education is like paying above sticker on a car. The college I went to was a private institution and had a sticker price of $35k my freshman year and over $40k my senior year. Room and board and textbooks were additional. I took loans for everything not covered by scholarships or grants and I owe barely $20k.

snogglethorpe 14y ago

> The actual cost is much less ... often. OTOH, If you don't fit the mold, you may be screwed... I've known any number of students who actually were paying full price for tuition at top-tier private universities [to the tune of $50,000/year] despite being quite poor. Some took out massive loans, others did full-time work and attended as best they could.

muzz 14y ago
in the average case. sure, for every outlier on the high side it's likely there's an equally-outlying data point on the low side, etc.
brianchu 14y ago
What do you mean by "quite poor?" To my knowledge, if they're poor, they're poor. I don't know anyone who was legitimately poor that did not qualify for financial aid. EDIT (reply to below): Your point about the estranged parent is valid; a wealthy parent refusing to pay is the only case in which a "poor" student does not get much financial aid. Foreign students are not entirely excluded from financial aid, though they get much less. Studying abroad is a luxury, and the case of a poor foreign student whose family lives in the US who chooses not to attend an affordable state/local college is very much an edge case. By and large, if your family is poor, you qualify for financial aid.
- muzz 14y ago
  At Stanford, it's a policy that if your family makes less than $100,000/yr, they waive tuition. At Harvard and some other Ivies, they do it at $60,000/yr.
  - mjmahone17 14y ago
    At Brown, that is the case as well (at 60k/yr). And yet, there are federal and school policies in place to prevent students from paying less than their fair share. I know students whose families earn about 25-30k/yr, who have siblings, and are still expected to pay ~15k/yr. My family's Expected Family Contribution last year was something like 20k (which is more than they were able to pay, so I still had to go into debt). However, due to the fact that I earned about 10k at an internship the previous summer, despite my parent's income remaining constant, our EFC increased to 28k. And, due to my unusually high income, I was eligible for about 4k less in subsidized federal loans (which I've had to max out). Meaning I've had to rely on private loans to make up the difference this year. While I'm forever grateful for the aid I have received, there are still waaay too many cracks students can fall through.
    - Crake 14y ago
      Yup, gotta love being punished for working hard. :/ It also especially sucks when you have a high EFC and your parents are only willing to contribute, uh, $0.
  - Crake 14y ago
    Unfortunately, a policy that is rarely actually followed. It's amazing how private colleges will bend over backwards to find you have an EFC that requires them to provide little to no financial assistance.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Er, "no significant savings, income, or other resources to draw upon." The "system" generally tries to support poor people, but there are an awful lot of rules in place to try and make sure people pay their "fair share" and prevent cheating. I think usually those rules have more or less the desired effect, but like any rules, they can be rather blunt instruments, and end up hurting people as well. Some examples: + Foreign students are often ineligible for grants and aid (even those from the university itself), no matter how poor they and their parents are. [There are exceptions, e.g. Harvard (which has lots of money and extremely high admission standards), but my experience is that they are very rare.] + In many cases a parent's income is considered in calculating the student's resources, even if the student has no contact with or leverage over the parent and that parent is not willing to pay anything. The reason for such rules is obvious: to avoid parents pretending to be estranged in order to avoid paying their fair share. However it still can end up hurting students who really don't have any choice in the matter...