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Comment by sandkoan | Hacker News Reader

The Ivies and adjacent elite colleges are more than capable of giving out academic scholarships—they simply refuse to because that would lead to a race to the bottom in terms of how much money they'd be able to extract from top talent (who could easily negotiate colleges against each other for lower and lower tuition). And, from experience, Colubmia's defection hardly counts for much (which is why, I suspect, it's permitted): even their "prestigious" Rabi Scholarship yields no reduction in a mind-boggling $90,000 tuition—just a minute research stipend. They want to make you feel special while ensuring you still pay full price.

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This is totally ridiculous; virtually all of the Ivies offer need-blind funding; if you're admitted, then you're going to get whatever amount of scholarship you need to go.

You can look at Yale's details here: https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability ... e.g. virtually all families earning less than $75K per year will get a full-ride plus a $2,000 grant in the first year.

Are you seriously criticizing the Ivies decision to prioritize scholarships on the basis of financial need?

No, I'm criticizing their decision to only offer need-based scholarships when they could just as well provide both—if they really cared about academic strength, then they could put their money where their mouth is, and provide meaningful merit-based scholarships.

Princeton, for instance, is capable of letting in every student for free, and still not dipping into their endowment [0]. Why don't they do so? Because it would lead to lower tuitions across the board, and that's intolerable.

> if you're admitted, then you're going to get whatever amount of scholarship you need to go.

No, you get whatever amount of scholarship they think you need to go. Their understanding of your financial situation will be unsurprisingly self-serving.

[0] https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is...

As usual, Malcolm Gladwell looks insightful but it’s all surface gloss. Do some basic reading about the structure of university endowments: it’s not one big pot of money, it’s thousands upon thousands of individual gifts that often have specific purposes (like: a particular professorial chair, or a particular library) that are limitations on use.

I don’t even really understand the point about merit scholarships. Surely the purpose of a merit scholarship is to help someone who can’t afford to go to a school but who is academically outstanding? If you’re doing need-blind admissions and financial aid, that’s the empty set, isn’t it? Since everyone who is admitted can afford to go?

As to your last point, please go take a look at that Yale page I attached to the last post and tell me that you think the scholarship amounts look unfair to higher income households.

I only brought up the Gladwell post to clarify the scale at which these institutions operate. There is no question that they have the money, and, if they chose, could sustainably provide scholarships to some subset of the particularly meritorious. Nothing stops them from soliciting donations for a new merit fund just as they do for their chairs and libraries.

I'm not saying everyone deserves a merit scholarship—but if the point of university is to nurture the best and brightest, then the best and brightest shouldn't have to pay such exorbitant fees. Afterall, they're the reason the colleges maintain their sterling academic reputations.

If you have a household income of 250k—of which your take home is ~160k—and Columbia subtracts another 90k, that leaves you with 70k to pay for everything else. In expensive locales, that's not nearly enough to pay for the education of two children without mortgaging your house. If said best and brightest are unable to attend due to such circumstances, a merit scholarship seems in order—otherwise, you, as a college, are admitting that money means more to you than education, and that you're willing to take someone who isn't nearly as good (there's a reason you didn't admit them initially) simply because they're capable of paying. Not everyone who is admitted can afford to attend at the price of admission demanded by these colleges. Again, I speak from experience.

> the purpose of a merit scholarship is to help someone who can’t afford to go to a school but who is academically outstanding

No, that’s not the purpose of a merit scholarship. A merit scholarship is to encourage someone of merit to go to your school in particular by providing them money

That doesn't seem consistent with e.g. the National Merit Scholarship program, where the scholarship funding can be used towards an undergraduate course at any accredited school.

Right, but I'm discussing the purpose of individual schools offering merit programs in the context of already meeting full need.

I think the parent commentator would reject that you need to pick between need-based and merit scholarships. I have no idea how it would impact spend and whether it would be sustainable or not to provide full-need & merit scholarship.

> e.g. virtually all families earning less than $75K per year will get a full-ride plus a $2,000 grant in the first year.

and some middle class parents with two kids need to sell house to cover tuition?..

Who has to do this? Like give me the finances you are imagining

I suppose this is the “middle class” family taking home $600K per year and with a couple of million in a brokerage account. Yes, that family is probably not going to get much financial aid. I have no problem with that; speaking as someone who is in the broad vicinity of that category and will be paying for college in due course.

I entered numbers: two adults 150k income, 700k house with 300k mortgage left, 200k retirement, 50k investment. Tuition would be $38k.

I put those numbers into https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... and got ~$19k/yr estimate cost of Harvard.

That is competitive with many in-state tuitions.

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