Disadvantages of elite schools

[WedgeDawg]

Well endowment does have some to do with financial aid, but the financial aid comes from returns on investment after accounting for inflation, not the base endowment sum (and still not all of that goes towards financial aid). And yeah, donors also play a huge role.

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[jazian]

It's really dependent on the school though. Example, I got into WashU when I applied and would have had to take out over 40k/year in loans to pay for it even though my family's annual income was well below 100k. Some private schools do offer obscene amounts of aid, but there are also several top tier schools which do not.

As for the state school being more expensive, that's entirely dependent on what state you live in. I had friends that went to schools that charged less than 10k/year at the time, and that included room and board.



I'm not sure if the house necessarily matters, but assets is a good point. My parents had to included their stock and some other accounts in the FAFSA and it definitely hurt how much aid I was able to get. They were pretty appalled that the fact that they had lived conservatively and built up a solid retirement plan/savings to help send me to college ended up hurting us in terms of how much I could receive in loans.

Washu's finaid isnt that bad. I got full tuition off with around your income. You probably had a lot of property/assets that brought your tuition price up.

 

[avgn]

Washu's finaid isnt that bad. I got full tuition off with around your income. You probably had a lot of property/assets that brought your tuition price up.

It is bad compared to the rich Ivies. It is good compared to the rest if the country.

 

[Stagg737]

Financial aid as to do with FA-specific donors, not the endowment. You never touch the endowment for operating costs

Yea, I oversimplified it. I still expected them to help out more than they did though. It was a pittance compared to how much their actual COA was.

Washu's finaid isnt that bad. I got full tuition off with around your income. You probably had a lot of property/assets that brought your tuition price up.

We lived in a house that was worth less than 100k, and they didn't own any other properties/assets other than cheap cars. The thing that killed us was that I had busted my ass to save my money up, so I wasn't nearly as poor as most kids entering college, they had a strong retirement savings which included a bunch of mutual funds and stocks, and I was an only child. Tbh, it was very frustrating seeing friends whose families made more money than ours and who were pretty fiscally irresponsible getting far better financial aid than I was because our family lived conservatively and just looked like we had more money on paper. In the long run it's helped out some, and my parents are probably better off for retirement, but it was still very frustrating at the time.

On top of that, I applied to undergrad schools almost 10 years ago. I don't know too much about their loans or financial aid offers anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they've become more generous with their aid.

 

[avgn]

On top of that, I applied to undergrad schools almost 10 years ago. I don't know too much about their loans or financial aid offers anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they've become more generous with their aid.

+100
Even HYP in the past decade have significantly upgraded their FA capabilities