I wish more schools had the resources to go to the aid model that the Ivy League schools (and also Stanford?) have moved to in recent years. Fully need-blind admission and financial aid based ONLY on financial need. At Ivy League schools today there are ZERO merit or athletic scholarships. There are a few special programs that give merit-based grants for research or other special academic expenses but none that cover tuition or living costs. Even more importantly, there are semi-rigid guidelines laid out in advance that show the correlation between family income and expected family contribution (how much you'll pay for your kid to go to school). So if your child gets in on merit, you can reasonably predict how much you'll have to pay and in many, many cases it is a greatly reduced price. This is a good version of the "high tuition high aid" system. Best of all, all of this financial aid is no-loan and no-strings-attached free money.
Yes, of course elite schools will always court rich kids. Need-blind admissions will never change this. If your business school is named McGruberstein School of Business and Mr. McGruberstein's child applies to your school you'll probably take him. While this chips away at the idea of a true meritocracy it does encourage many of the donations that fund the financial aid for low income students in the first place. Yes this is "evil" and is certainly Not Fair, but the colleges need to court these donations in order to build facilities and provide aid at current levels. I know that many of the elite schools spend much more on students each year than they bring in via tuition, and this is financed by the large and ever-growing endowment that they so value.
Yes, of course elite schools will always court rich kids. Need-blind admissions will never change this. If your business school is named McGruberstein School of Business and Mr. McGruberstein's child applies to your school you'll probably take him. While this chips away at the idea of a true meritocracy it does encourage many of the donations that fund the financial aid for low income students in the first place. Yes this is "evil" and is certainly Not Fair, but the colleges need to court these donations in order to build facilities and provide aid at current levels. I know that many of the elite schools spend much more on students each year than they bring in via tuition, and this is financed by the large and ever-growing endowment that they so value.