Colleges Face a Financial-Aid Crunch

[MattH]

Article

...never seen so many personal appeals folded into the files. Setting aside his computer algorithms and thick-buttoned relic of a calculator, he absorbed every typewritten page. One family expected a 50% income drop; another planned to sell its home to help pay tuition. A note from a family nearly a year behind on its mortgage made Shorb chuckle. "Unfortunately," it read, "we have not been bailed out by the $700 billion government rescue."...He relies on two formulas, one federal, one from the College Board. Both use a fairly spartan set of assumptions about a family's saving and spending--instead of its actual habits. For instance, a Midwestern family earning $89,800 is expected, according to one of Shorb's algorithms, to put away $1,365 a year for its two children's education....money troubles are continually changing the outlook. In previous cycles, Shorb estimates, he could base 95% of the aid awards on the prior year's tax returns. But this time Shorb is also trying to project many applicant families' income for 2009, which, given the volatility of the economy, is anyone's guess.
Such financial uncertainty is stoking fears of backsliding to an era when private colleges were the ivy-covered province of the privileged. Skidmore assistant director of admissions Marisa Ferrara fielded her first ever requests this year from parents rescinding financial-aid applications at the eleventh hour for fear that they would harm their children's chances of getting in...

At the end of the article, one of the links to related articles is to one entitled "Job Forecast for College Seniors: Grimmer Than Ever."

[Anonymous]

 "Just like an airplane," explains Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). "No two people going from point A to point B paid the same price for the ticket."

Gee, I wonder why some students are going to cheaper schools? Especially if your the lucker winner that gets to pay the higher ticket price. Elitest schools create an elitest atitude that helped get us into this finanical mess (all those Wall Street bankers). Have a nice day  

Message Edited by XoXoX on 04-04-2009 09:51 AM

[LynnInMN]

When I was in financial aid, I saw too many kids attending school for the wrong reasons...either to get their MRS or "for the experience".  Even though I worked a state school, local kids loved to live in the dorms, which are not cheap.  Often they were disappointed when federal aid would not pay for it.

Expensive colleges are not always the best way to go.  Sure they have a good reputation, but usually they offer less choice and have less opportunities than a large or medium sized state college.  Here in Minnesota we have a couple of very good private colleges with specialized programs.  A lot of students are encouraged to do to a local community college to get the expensive gen ed's out of the way for a couple of years and then transfer in.  

[MattH]

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@LynnInMN wrote:

When I was in financial aid, I saw too many kids attending school for the wrong reasons...either to get their MRS or "for the experience".  Even though I worked a state school, local kids loved to live in the dorms, which are not cheap.  Often they were disappointed when federal aid would not pay for it.

Expensive colleges are not always the best way to go.  Sure they have a good reputation, but usually they offer less choice and have less opportunities than a large or medium sized state college.  Here in Minnesota we have a couple of very good private colleges with specialized programs.  A lot of students are encouraged to do to a local community college to get the expensive gen ed's out of the way for a couple of years and then transfer in.  

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I've seen a wide range of campuses myself.  My parents taught at UW-Milwaukee, and I've attended various places starting with an undergrad degree at Purdue, a doctorate from Duke, postdoctoral work at Yale, and courses here and there from several other places.  No matter where I've studied, the old truism remains accurate: what I got out of it depended first and foremost on me and not on the institution.  Any student needs to think through his or her goals and level of preparation first and then decide where to go.  No institution can be right for everybody.

One of the hardest things for me to learn has been what to do when nobody knows the correct answer.  When I was a student I was learning things the experts already knew, but ever since I got my doctorate the world has basically been paying me to learn things nobody knows and therefore nobody else can tell me how to do it.  My various classes provided me with the background and techniques, but what I am doing now cannot be learned in any class.

Message Edited by MattH on 04-04-2009 05:06 PM