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Both the Atlantic story kindly submitted here and a recent Business Week story http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/college-financial-aid-isnt-going

Both the Atlantic story kindly submitted here and a recent Business Week story http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/college-financial-aid-isnt-going-to-the-neediest http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/college-fina... are reporting on findings from a report by Stephen Burd for the New American Foundation, "Undermining Pell: How Colleges Compete for Wealthy Students and Leave the Low-Income Behind." http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/undermining_pell http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/undermining_pell http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Merit_Aid%20Final.pdf http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/... This has been an ongoing problem for a long time. Colleges seek the advice of consulting firms that tell the colleges how to maximize revenues, and one way to do that is to skew "financial aid" policies in favor of students from high-income families. http://www.maguireassoc.com/services-challenges/optimize-net-revenue/ http://www.maguireassoc.com/services-challenges/optimize-net... As a matter of talent development across the whole country, the United States finding consistently is that it is more advantageous for a child to a be a low-ability child from a high-income family than a high-ability child from a low-income family. http://www.jkcf.org/news-knowledge http://www.jkcf.org/news-knowledge http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=10000 http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=10000 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/education/scholarly-poor-often-overlook-better-colleges.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/education/scholarly-poor-o... It's understandable why a parent who has money would want to use that money to give Junior leverage to gain upward social mobility. What's harder to understand is why publicly subsidized financial aid programs would fail to identify the most able students who lack family means to attend college, rather than being used by colleges to leverage the admission of even more average students from well-off families. AFTER EDIT: Other comments in this thread are asking where parents and taxpayers can find information about the costs of each college. The United States federal government IPEDS database gathers data about college revenues and spending from all colleges in the country, and the federal data are presented in the most user-friendly format by the College Results website http://www.collegeresults.org/ http://www.collegeresults.org/ operated by the Education Trust. You can look up how radically colleges differ in what they spend per student and in graduation rates of admitted students, among many other interesting statistics, on the College Results site.

larrys 14y ago
"being used by colleges to leverage the admission of even more average students from well-off families" Entirely possible that the mix of students at a University as far as "class" needs to be skewed a certain way as well to gain other hidden benefits..(Add: in addition to what else is being talked about in your and other comments.) For example you don't want 90% of your students coming from NY State, you don't want 90% of your students to be asian and you may very well want a larger percentage of your students coming from upper middle class families just because it creates (in their opinion) a better environment as a whole at the University. Meaning a mediocre student from a wealthy family is still a person from a wealthy family. A mediocre student from a lower class family is a person raised in a lower class family. Different dress, different actions etc. (I'm purposely using extremes to try and make the point about possible motives.) All of this of course is not talked about but entirely possible that it exists (pure speculation). Just as it's possible that two women interviewing with exactly the same qualifications (and family background) one who is extremely attractive and one that isn't, the attractive one gets the admission. Your thoughts?
- tokenadult 14y ago
  I don't how much more clear I need to make my last comment in this thread to point out that the United States problem is that wealthy family students are already HUGELY overrepresented among college students, and an actually DUMB student from a wealthy family is much more likely to be recruited by a college, admitted to a college, and supported through graduation by a college than an actually smart student from a "lower class" (your term) family. Money talks more than smarts when it comes to college admissions in the United States. Many countries consciously set different policies, and I think that is a good idea. (For one thing, among many other possible reasons for supporting such national policies, national policies that favor brains over money in admission to higher education appear to have higher sustained rates of economic growth for the whole country and lower rates of income inequality in the national population.) From the Business Week article I linked to in my first comment: "For example, the paper cites data that show 19 percent of freshman with SAT scores under 700 (out of a maximum 2,400) received merit aid, as did 27 percent of freshman with scores between 700 and 999. The term 'merit scholarships,' in other words, is a misnomer, the report says, because schools can distribute the aid however they please." I do agree with you that if colleges decide the policies, they will presumably decide for the benefit of colleges, rather than for the benefit of society as a whole. What is objectionable about United States practice is federal tax-supported subsidies to colleges that the colleges distort into benefits for wealthier individuals.

larrys 14y ago

"being used by colleges to leverage the admission of even more average students from well-off families" Entirely possible that the mix of students at a University as far as "class" needs to be skewed a certain way as well to gain other hidden benefits..(Add: in addition to what else is being talked about in your and other comments.) For example you don't want 90% of your students coming from NY State, you don't want 90% of your students to be asian and you may very well want a larger percentage of your students coming from upper middle class families just because it creates (in their opinion) a better environment as a whole at the University. Meaning a mediocre student from a wealthy family is still a person from a wealthy family. A mediocre student from a lower class family is a person raised in a lower class family. Different dress, different actions etc. (I'm purposely using extremes to try and make the point about possible motives.) All of this of course is not talked about but entirely possible that it exists (pure speculation). Just as it's possible that two women interviewing with exactly the same qualifications (and family background) one who is extremely attractive and one that isn't, the attractive one gets the admission. Your thoughts?

tokenadult 14y ago
I don't how much more clear I need to make my last comment in this thread to point out that the United States problem is that wealthy family students are already HUGELY overrepresented among college students, and an actually DUMB student from a wealthy family is much more likely to be recruited by a college, admitted to a college, and supported through graduation by a college than an actually smart student from a "lower class" (your term) family. Money talks more than smarts when it comes to college admissions in the United States. Many countries consciously set different policies, and I think that is a good idea. (For one thing, among many other possible reasons for supporting such national policies, national policies that favor brains over money in admission to higher education appear to have higher sustained rates of economic growth for the whole country and lower rates of income inequality in the national population.) From the Business Week article I linked to in my first comment: "For example, the paper cites data that show 19 percent of freshman with SAT scores under 700 (out of a maximum 2,400) received merit aid, as did 27 percent of freshman with scores between 700 and 999. The term 'merit scholarships,' in other words, is a misnomer, the report says, because schools can distribute the aid however they please." I do agree with you that if colleges decide the policies, they will presumably decide for the benefit of colleges, rather than for the benefit of society as a whole. What is objectionable about United States practice is federal tax-supported subsidies to colleges that the colleges distort into benefits for wealthier individuals.