It’s certainly about time that prestigious universities returned to the idea of rewarding merit, promise, and ability as the primary considerations.
We have had huge problems with some of our kids. One of my daughters had outstanding grades from a top rated high school, got astronomical SATs, and won a National Merit Scholarship. She was admitted into the best colleges, every one that she applied to, including Williams and Dartmouth (she didn’t apply to Harvard). BUT Williams and Dartmouth wouldn’t offer her a dime of scholarship money, although she reported that they were giving full four-year scholarships to other students who visited with her because they were designated minorities.
She ended up going to the University of New Hampshire, which anachronistically still seemed eager to award merit. Another of my daughters is now going there for the same reason.
Maybe Harvard is starting to realize that you can only afford to take in so many middling affirmative action kids, and lose so many of the brightest applicants, before you lose the cachet of being a top school that turns out the best and brightest.
“Maybe Harvard is starting to realize that you can only afford to take in so many middling affirmative action kids, and lose so many of the brightest applicants, before you lose the cachet of being a top school that turns out the best and brightest.”
Ouch.
True.
UNH is a solid school, your daughter will do well by them. She really dodged a bullet by not going to Harvard... they’re liberal ninnies with their heads up they’re arses- every last one of them. I had the misfortune of being employed by them at one point in my career- am I ever glad that I’m gone!
Given the increasing costs of attending private colleges, the practical effect of a no merit aid policy has been to price the middle class and even much of the upper middle class out of the market for these schools. The schools have been left with the children of the poor, some middle class students who are members of favored categories, children of the truly rich and a few children from the upper middle class whose parents are willing to pay $45,000 to $50,000 (after tax) per year. This is hardly the "diverse" student body that these schools purportedly desire, nor is it necessarily one most likely to produce alumni of signficant accomplishment. Also, alumni who raise children who excell academically, but who cannot afford to send those children to the old alma mater, tend to reduce their annual pledges.
Harvard is the first of these schools to tacitly admit that a no merit aid policy has these undesired effects. Others will follow. Until then the uninitended beneficiaries of these policies will be the schools who understand that even higher education is subject to some price elasticity of demand.
My daughter was in the first class of women admitted to a prestigious and expensive private college. We were sufficiently middle class that she did not qualify for financial aid, although they generously gave her $100 each year as an honorarium for having been selected for a prize fellowship. She certainly met their expectations, being Phi Beta Kappa and ODK. The college failed mine, however, because some students from middle class families easily “cooked the books” to qualify for aid, and though on scholarship, could afford late model cars from the high end, study abroad, spring breaks in the most desired places,and many another enhancement, whereas my daughter worked in the library, served as a dorm counselor, and worked hard every summer just to be able to stay there. I will concede that she got a very good education which has served her well, but I am still annoyed that the wealthy students got the full deal, and so did those on scholarships, many of whom even got a semester abroad on the college’s nickel. Though it is too late for my kids, I hope that Harvard’s action has a ripple effect which helps really able middle class kids have access to the prestige institutions equal to the access afforded to the welfare class and to the athletically gifted but academically challenged regardless of class.