Do I really mean it when I say to never turn down a full ride?

One of my earliest blog posts—and still one on the most popular—was “Don’t pass up a full ride.” You can probably tell the main idea from the title: you should not pass up a full ride. If you apply to a school and they offer you a full scholarship, go to that school.

Last week I got an email from a parent asking me if I still stand by that advice. His daughter won an honors scholarship—a full ride—at her state’s public flagship university, where she “didn’t know full rides existed until she was invited to interview.” She was also accepted to Washington University in St. Louis, a smaller private college with acceptance rates under 15%. And this is the problem, a problem I’ve heard before:

“Our heads say one thing and our hearts another, in part because the small school with huge endowment and beautiful campus is definitely appealing, but probably mostly seduced by this notion that an elite university is a sign of winning and will validate her hard work and make her feel as rewarded as her classmates who managed to get into some Ivies.”

My response was more sympathetic than you might expect.

“The short answer to your question is yes, I do think there are sometimes exceptions to my "never pass up a full ride" rule, and those exceptions are usually situations similar to yours. Though vague and unquantifiable, there is a value--in terms of professional networks, recruiting, social connections, and prestige--to the most elite colleges that can make them more valuable than the full ride at a safety. I would absolutely encourage a student to pass up a full ride elsewhere for Harvard, MIT, or Stanford if they could afford it. WashU probably fits into that category as well. No one can reasonably assume they'll be accepted at WashU, and she applied to her safety not knowing that a full ride was a possibility, so it can be reasonable to pass up the scholarship (which you weren't expecting) for the elite private college (which you weren't expecting to accept you). I would not think your daughter made a "bad" choice if she decides on WashU. 

It sounds like what it comes down to is an emotional decision--prestige, allure, falling in love--versus a rational one--major, money. Personally, I'm more of an emotional, intuitive person. Professionally, I work to be neutral. Either are valid, as long as she understands the choices.

If she were my client, I would make sure she's thinking through both options and communicating with her family. I'd tell her it's her own decision to make and that I would understand and support either decision. I would also really hope she takes the scholarship.”

So for me, the “prestige value” exception only applies to a tiny number of colleges: MIT, Harvard, and Stanford. While I’m very conservative in that list, I can see someone using the same logic for a longer number of schools, including WashU. The trick is that the list can’t be too long. You can’t stretch the vague, unquantifiable value so thin that you get yourself into a “the more prestigious school is aways worth more than a full ride the less prestigious school.” It’s just not true.

There are a few other exceptions to the “never turn down a full ride” advice.

Unsolicited scholarships. How do you respond if a school just, out of the blue, offers you a full scholarship even if you didn't apply or have never heard of it? Yes, this actually happens sometimes. Evaluate that school just as you would any other school, without taking into mind the price. If it meets your criteria and is a place you'd apply, then you're done. Congratulations! If the school doesn't make it into your top twenty and isn't a place you would want to apply, then you can comfortably say No Thanks. 

Financially troubled colleges. A full scholarship to a college may not be worth much if the college closes before you’re about to graduate. And colleges are closing at a rate of about one a week right now. It’s not always easy to know if a school is in financial distress—they probably won’t tell you as part of their marketing materials. But there are some signs to look for. If you’re accepting a good deal from a financially troubled college, even if it’s not a full ride, you’re taking a big risk. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you must always avoid the risk: a year or two of free college might be worth it even if you end up having to transfer elsewhere to finish college. But there’s no shame in turning down a full scholarship from a college that isn’t really able to afford it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Not all merit aid is the same

   Colleges don’t give you money

   Five key ideas about paying for college

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elsiabeth

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Colleges don't give you money

Tomorrow, December 1, the newly revised FAFSA will open up online, several months later than it usually does.

I haven’t seen the updated website yet, so I don’t have any specific advice about the FAFSA. But I do have some big-picture advice about affordability and paying for college. And that advice comes down that one reminder: colleges don’t give you money.

Pretty much everyone, myself included, goes along with the idea that financial aid is money that the colleges are giving away. We use the verbs “give” and “offer” all the time. If the sticker price is $50,000 and the price that you’ll be charged is $25,000, then they “gave” you $25,000 in aid. You might contact them to see if they can “offer” you more. And that $25,000 is real. It’s money that you’re not paying, and it makes a huge difference in your life. But it’s not money that they’re giving you, it’s just a discount on what they charge you.

Compare it to buying clothes. Imagine you go to Macy’s to buy some jeans. The price tag says $100, but they’re on sale for 20% off. So you pay $80. That $20 difference is real—it’s money that you can spend on something else. But it would sound kind of silly if Macy’s told you they were “giving” you $20 to buy the jeans. It would sound ridiculous if Macy’s added up all the discounts they gave over a year and claimed they “provided” Americans with millions of dollars in aid. That sale price isn’t money they’re giving away, it’s a discount on what they’re bringing in. It’s a slight distinction, but it can have a huge effect.

Unlike Macy’s, colleges do this all the time. They have a sticker price, and they offer you a discount, and then they frame it as money they’re offering you. They can have you focus on how generous their offer is instead of how much money you and your family are paying. You don’t have to play along if you don’t want. You can stay laser-focused on your cost, not their generosity.

And then there’s debt. When colleges offer you loans to help you pay for college, this counts as aid. That actually makes sense, because if you’re able to afford the college by taking the loan and paying over years when you wouldn’t be able to afford it in cash, then they are indeed aiding you in your ability to go to college. But don’t let that aid get too caught up in the language of “offer” and “giving.” It’s money you’re spending. You’re spending it over time, not all at once, and that’s really helpful. But you’re spending it, and taking a risk doing so. Give your future self credit for that money, not the college, because it’s your future self that is actually paying.

This advice is about mindset and perspective. By reminding you that colleges don’t actually give you money, I’m hoping to help you make more rational decisions and have healthier emotions. So when you get your financial aid offers in the coming months, keep a few things in mind:

Stay completely focused on the cost to you, not what the college is offering. If you read a financial aid offer and still aren’t sure what your cost is (it happens often), get in touch and ask them to explain the offer so that you can understand what your cost it. While you’re at it, ask them what the average price increase is every year.

The sticker price is completely made up and arbitrary. On average, only about 15% of students pay the full price. There are lots of factors that go into the sticker price, but one strategy that some schools use is setting a higher sticker price so that they can advertise how generous they are with aid. It’s like Macy’s changing the price of those jeans from $100 to $110 so they can still get $80 but also advertise a $30 discount instead of $20.

The price that you pay is your price, and almost every student has a different price. How much of a discount schools offer is determined based on your family finances and how much you can afford, your perceived long-term value to the school, and how many discounts they’re offering other people. Your perceived long-term value to the school is complex. How much a school perceives your value to them may take into account how likely they think you are to graduate; how much time and talent you may contribute to the campus while you’re there; athletic, artistic, or other talents you have that can be useful to a school team or program; how likely you and your family are to donate to the school in the long term; and what academic and/or social gaps the school is experiencing that you can help fill. When you hear “merit,” you probably think of how well you performed in high school. When the colleges say “merit,” they’re probably thinking about your long-term value to them. They aren’t the same. There’s no way for you to know your perceived long-term value to a school ahead of applying for admission and financial aid.

If you’re trying to estimate your cost at a particular school, skip over their stats about average aid offered or percentage of students who receive aid. Don’t get caught up in the “offers.” Look at two numbers: the average net price and the average indebtedness at graduation. Use those as your reference points. If your family has normal finances, that is likely to be around the price they ask of you. If your family has less money than average, expect a lower price. If your family has more money than normal, expect a higher price.

Pay attention to debt. If you graduate college within five years and don’t take on too much debt, then the debt is probably worth it. The average lifetime earnings of college graduates is much higher than that of people who don’t have a college degree. If you already feel like there are obstacles that may keep you from graduating, then you should be very hesitant to take on student debt. You should also be hesitant of taking on more than $30,000 debt total over the four-five years you’re a student. I’d like to say that you can adjust a reasonable debt load based on your career path. Maybe higher debt is fine if you’re going into computer engineering, and you should be more frugal if you’re going into early childhood education. But the truth is that you don’t know what job you’ll have in your first few years after graduation, or how much it will pay.

Talk to your family about money, as soon as possible. You should know your line between “affordable” and “not affordable” before you apply to schools, and definitely before you start getting financial aid offers.

Never skip applying to a college that you think is a good fit because you think you can’t afford it. Wait until you know your cost, and then decide if you can afford it. People are surprised by their financial aid offers, in both directions, all the time. Maybe you’re right and you can’t afford it, but make them tell you so.

Assume that you’re going to attend the least expensive school that accepts you. If you decide to go to a school that is more expensive than other schools that accept you, you should be able to explain—to yourself and others—why. “Because it’s a better school” or “because it’s a better fit” aren’t good enough. Be able to explain why you think it’s a better school for you and why you think the extra cost is worth it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Things for parents to know about paying for college

   Not all merit aid is the same

   Three things parent should stop saying to their children

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Trying to get more financial aid

It’s early April, seniors. By now you should have all your admission decisions back from colleges, and you should also have your financial aid offers. You’ve got a little less than a month to make your final decision, and cost is probably a major—if not the only—factor that will guide your decision on where to go. Comparing financial aid offers is tricky, because they’re not uniform and not always very clear. So the first thing to do is to go through them carefully and slowly with your family. If you have questions, ask. The schools should have given you the contact information for questions and concerns, so use that.

It’s very typical at this point to have two or three good choices and no clear top choice. If that’s the case, then you’ll probably choose the most affordable of them and be done with your search. But if you still have a single standout favorite, then after understanding the competing offers you may find yourself realizing that you’re unable to attend your top-choice school because of finances. If that’s the case, there’s still time to ask for more money, but you have to move quickly.

It is absolutely essential that you know how much money you still need. You should have this number already, because you and your family have talked about what is affordable for you. You’re down to the final days and very specific dollar amounts. You need a real number, not a hazy concept. If your family is saying that the top-choice school is still not within range, ask them how much money would make it affordable. You need that number. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re asking for and won’t know if you get it.

Next, prioritize. You can make an effort to change one, maybe two, offers. Limit yourself to that. Don’t put yourself through the entire process again with a lot of places. Focus.

Have your back-up plan. Assume there will be no financial aid changes, and make a plan based on that assumption. Make your appeals, but assume that the offers you have are your final offers. Don’t hold onto so much hope that you don’t plan for the likely outcome.

Finally, understand that you’re not really negotiating. You’re not in a position of strength here. You’re not haggling, this is not a game, there is no winner. You’re simply asking for more money. You may get it, you may not. Be prepared for both. If you want to have a sense of how likely a school is to work with you, there are a few things to look up. First, see how many people took a place on the waitlist for the past few years, and also how many people on the waitlist actually got a spot. If the school uses a large waitlist and few people actually get off the waitlist, then “if you don’t give me more money I won’t go there” isn’t much of a threat. Also compare your bottom-line number to their average net price. If they’re asking more from you than what’s average, there may be some room to work. But again, these just give you an idea. They help you manage your own expectations. You don’t get an answer from the school until you ask, and last year’s stats don’t necessarily tell you anything about your own situation.

Understand what you’re asking for and why. Then explain both of those things as clearly as possible to the school. This isn’t the time for clever narratives or emotional pleas. Let them know what the problem is and ask them politely if they’re able to help solve it. Here are some common scenarios.

You’re asking for more need aid because your situation isn’t the same as what’s on your FAFSA. Your Expected Family Contribution and need are based on the information you submitted to the FAFSA (and sometimes the CSS Profile). But that information may be out of date, and your circumstances have changed significantly. One example might be that a parent or guardian is at a different job or no longer has a job, so their income is much lower. If this is the case, explain the issue, and provide as much documentation as possible. The more evidence, the better. Send along more recent tax documents, pay stubs, medical bills or other official documents that can help you show that your actual need is very different from the one that was calculated earlier.

You’re asking for more need aid because they gapped you. This probably isn’t an accident—they know they gapped you. Tell them that the school is still your top choice, but that you won’t be able to attend with the package they offered you. What if you can get by without getting the full need met? This is a difficult situation. If you let them know you don’t really need your full need met, then you may be asking for less than they might actually offer you. This is unlikely, but still a risk. If you tell them you absolutely need the full need met, then they may offer you nothing even though you may have got the lesser amount. So there’s a risk either way. I advise people to be upfront and tell them exactly how much you really need, but I understand people not wanting to ask less than the full need amount and “leave money on the table.”

You’re asking for more merit aid because, despite getting full need met, you don’t think you can actually afford to go without more. If they’ve met your full need beyond EFC, this is going to be tricky. But let them know and see. Be polite and show gratitude for meeting your full need. And let them know that, despite the formula, you still won’t be able to attend without more aid. Let them know exactly how much more you’re asking for—the smaller the number, the easier it may be to get them to offer it.

You’re asking for more merit aid because you got a better offer from a different school, but this one is still your top choice. It’s difficult to accept an offer from a school, even your favorite, when another school is offering a much better aid package. Let the school know your situation. Provide documentation of the better offer. Remember, you’re not haggling or negotiating. If you say “match this better offer or I’m not going to your school,” they can easily say “have a great time at the other school!” But if you’re saying that you and the school are a great match and it’s truly your top choice, but that your family just ins’t in a position to walk away from a better offer from another school that’s also a good fit…but not as good a fit, then say so and see what they can do. Again, make sure you’ve talked to your family and know what kind of price you’ll accept. The school is likely to give you more aid, but not as much as that other school is actually offering. Be emotionally prepared for this.

You’re asking for more merit aid because you would like more aid even though you can afford it. You won’t have to walk away from your top choice, you just think it doesn’t hurt to ask. You’re right, it doesn’t. But it’s difficult to explain and difficult to get sympathy. If they’ve meet your full EFC and you don’t have a cheaper offer from another school to document, you're essentially asking “hey, got any aid money left?” If this is what you’re doing, emphasize how great a fit the school is and how it’s your very top choice. Let them know that the aid package they’re offering is really going to stretch your family budget in a way that is difficult, that you’re hoping that more aid has been freed up, and that if it has you would like to be considered.

I wish you well in these final weeks, seniors! It’s still really stressful, but you’re almost there.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Make your choice and don’t look back

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Not all merit aid is the same

It’s generally understood that there are two types of financial aid: need-based aid and merit aid. Need-based aid is relatively straightforward. Your family submits financial documents (mostly income tax forms) so your Expected Family Contribution, how much you and your family might be expected to pay, can be determined. The difference between the price of a college and your EFC is considered need. Need-based aid, loans that have to be repaid and/or grants that don’t have to be repaid, is awarded to help you cover that need.

Merit aid, on the other hand, isn’t based on financial need. Merit aid—scholarships and grants—is what colleges offer to students trying to entice them to choose their school over other schools. It’s a tool universities use to make sure they get enough students to enroll and to get the student they really want.

(There is a lot of overlap between need-based and merit aid. If a college is really interested in a student, they may find a way to reduce their EFC and therefore get more need-based aid. Also, being able to meet full need and not gap a student on aid is definitely a way to entice students. But let’s ignore the overlap today and focus on pure merit aid.)

What’s less generally understood is that there is a wide variety of merit aid. To get an idea of the spectrum of merit aid, let’s look at two examples from my home in Houston.

When you look at the scholarship page on the University of Houston’s website, you get a lot of information. There are so many different scholarships, both funded by the university and outside sources, that they have a special navigation tool to help you search through all of them. Each scholarship has a name, a description, and instructions for how to apply. You can spend a lot of time looking through the scholarships and see exactly what you may be eligible for. It’s overwhelming at first, but it’s transparent.

Screenshot of the Scholarship Universe page at the University of Houston website.

For comparison, have a look at the Rice University merit scholarships page.

All admitted freshman applicants are automatically considered for merit-based scholarships so that no separate application forms or interviews are necessary. The Office of Admission notifies scholarship winners at the time of admission to the university.

That’s it. There aren’t individual scholarships you can apply for, nor are there descriptions or requirements. It’s the scholarship version of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Screenshot of the Merit Scholarship page at Rice University’s website.

These are two extremes. On one end is U of H, which is basically a list of individual scholarships that require extra applications on your part. On the other end is Rice, where merit aid is not separately applied for, but is just part of your overall application. One is limited, but transparent. One is open-ended, but opaque.

Merit aid at most colleges is somewhere in between. There are named and defined scholarships for which you can apply, but there are also “merit aid” tuition discounts that just…appear. It helps to remember that while need-based aid is all about you and your particular circumstances, merit aid is all about the school and the funds they have to try to entice students to apply and enroll. Some schools have limited funds to hand out merit aid, and some schools have tons.

These two extreme examples remind us of several key ideas when it comes to merit aid:

Not all merit aid is the same. There’s the specified and limited kind like you see on the University of Houston website, and then there’s the mysterious kind you see on the Rice website. When I talk to students, they’re usually thinking of the UH kind. They’re talking about scholarships for which they can apply. When I talk to college admission professionals, they’re usually thinking of the Rice kind. They’re talking about the tuition discounts that are offered out of the blue by algorithmic calculations the college makes to decide how much to offer you to entice you to enroll. When you’re thinking about applying to a college, spend time on their financial aid sites to see where they fall in their approach. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to apply for a scholarship, nor do you want to assume that there’s no merit aid if there is. But you should know what the school offers.

Merit aid is often out of your control. It’s all about them enticing you for their enrollment needs, not necessarily you earning something through a competition. There are all sorts of reasons a university may want to entice you, and you often don’t know what it may be. Maybe the college is trying to improve the stats of their incoming class and therefore their ranking, so they want to lure students with higher test scores and higher GPAs. Maybe they’re trying to improve diversity, so they want to lure students from different parts of the country or with different experiences than those who typically applied in the past. Maybe they’re trying to fill up a new major they offer or revitalize a declining program, so they want to lure bright students with a particular course of study in mind. Maybe they want to lure wealthy students who can pay cash, so they flatter them by giving them a merit-based scholarship and a small discount to get them to come and pay most of the tuition. So think of merit aid as “acceptance plus.” You’ve been accepted to the college, plus they want to give you a discount in order to really lure you in. Some schools give very few applicants this kind of bonus, and some schools give most—or even all—their applicants some kind of bonus.

Generally speaking, expect more transparency from public institutions. It’s not surprising that University of Houston has the navigable list of specific scholarships. Public institutions, which are subsidized by tax dollars and overseen by public boards, tend to have more regulations in place for transparency. Private colleges are more likely to use the un-announced, un-applied-for type of merit aid. To be clear, I’m not saying that public universities are more or less likely to give you merit aid, just more likely to tell you upfront what it might be, and to make you apply for it separately.

Generally speaking, expect less merit aid the more selective an institution is. Remember that merit aid is meant to entice you to apply to their college, and to enroll if accepted. So it makes sense that the lower the acceptance rate of a college, the less merit aid you might expect. They already have enough applications; they don’t need to entice more. That’s how a private university with a low acceptance rate like Rice can be so nonchalant about merit aid. And it’s how the schools with the very lowest acceptance rates, like Harvard and Stanford, don’t give merit aid at all.

With each school you apply to, know what their merit aid landscape looks like and what you need to do. If you’re considering applying to a school, make sure you check out their website to learn more about their merit aid program. Is it more like the one at the University of Houston, or more like the one at Rice University? If you want to know even more details about aid, look up the Common Data Set for the college. Just do a web search for “[name of school] common data set”. Most colleges have this information available, and you can scroll through the spreadsheet to find all kinds of financial information. It takes some searching, but it’s there.

You can’t assume you will get merit aid. Whichever type of merit aid you’re thinking of, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any. If you meet certain qualifications to get automatic merit aid at a particular college (being a National Merit finalist, for example, or having really high standardized test scores), that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get that automatic aid from other schools. Each sets their own policies, and—as we’ve seen—not all of them even tell you what those policies are.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Schools can, and should, teach college affordability

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Asking for more financial aid

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.