Expected family contributions for college loans might be going away, thanks to COVID-19

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/24/expected-family-contributions-for-college-loans-might-be-going-away-thanks-to-covid-19.html

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It used to not be…

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I had a middle-class student who was accepted by Harvard in 2008. She chose not to attend because, at the time, Harvard used a bizarre formula to assess need. Since her parents were paying a mortgage, the University counted the full market value of the house as an asset. Her parents were responsible for her tuition to Harvard, which they could ill afford.

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What, the federal government making it easier for people in financial need to go to college? Next you’re going to tell me the Secretary of Education is no longer an out-of-touch billionaire from a family of MLM grifters and mercenaries.

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When I was accepted to Carnegie-Mellon they were a “need blind” school, meaning they guaranteed financial aid based on need to everyone they accepted.

However, the economy (and presumably their endowment and contribution revenues) took a dive, and suddenly they couldn’t really afford that. So they took their lowest quality applicants, like me, and then made shit up, like claiming that my father had failed to disclose rental properties (?!) to them. We couldn’t fight it, and I had to surrender my position and scramble to find another school, as at that point it was past the application period and is dropped my other previous applications.

Anyway, continue to have a dim view means testing, whatever the venue.

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My daughter will start college in the Autumn. I will then have two offspring in college while my wife is still paying off her student loans.

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The only thing that’s free is the application.

They just naturally assumed it was a second home. /s

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Thanks be to all the gods! Geesh, as if anybody needs any more road blocks on the way to just getting in the door of college…

One hurdle down in the fight for educational equity.

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I was simply invited to leave home at that most delicate time, no money was exchanged, to my knowledge.

BTW: The military came to the rescue with open arms, the cost was only 8 years of my life and the ponytail had to go of course…

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An out of touch billionaire proven with video child abuser

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Financing college is why I’m crossing my fingers that my daughters want to go into some kind of local trade (landscape arch, electrician, etc). I’m not going to disparage Psyc or English majors, but I have friends who landed in those fields back in college aspiring to be authors or doctors only to land in $100k debt working retail.

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Except the applications are not free. You gotta cough up fees for each one. They are not willing to process those for free.

My daughter is going though the whole college application thing now. She applied to like 12 colleges. I think I’ve spent over $1000 on college applications at this point.

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That sucks and I’m not looking forward to it. Are you saying that the FAFSA carries a fee or that college applications do?

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FAFSA is free.

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