“Approximately two-thirds of our students receive some form of financial aid.” “Need blind.” “100% of need met.” Those are just a few of the promises that colleges make to students seeking financial aid. But there’s a lot they’re not disclosing.
In a landscape where it now costs well over $90,000 for an out-of-state private education at top schools like Columbia University and the University of Chicago, many colleges make false or misleading claims about financial aid each application cycle. To better prepare students for affordable lives in college, schools should steer clear of misleading marketing tactics and provide full transparency to students they are trying to recruit.
“The big-name schools all have their own definition of what financial need is,” college and career adviser Shveta Bagade said. “We talk about college admissions and we’ll always say, ‘Well, it depends.’ It’s worse for college financial aid because it will depend on the college, what they’re willing to do and what they feel is needed versus what is not needed.”
Another issue with college financial aid is the lack of consistency. The phrase “100% demonstrated need met” reigns many college websites proudly, including the websites of Yale University and New York University. At the same time, those two colleges are considered wildly unaffordable for the average American middle class family. How can both statements be true at once?
The calculation for “demonstrated need” varies between financial aid applications, such as the College Scholarship Service profile or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It also varies from school to school, as universities like Brown, Harvard and Princeton choose to disregard home equity, a major difference that helps families in the Bay Area, with its expensive real estate market, receive more aid.
“A lot of schools say they meet 100% of demonstrated financial aid,” senior Shreya Somani said. “But what I was really shocked at is what they consider demonstrated financial aid.”
Given the lack of standardization around how much aid is given to students, many families struggle to receive money from universities if they aren’t considered to be low-income. The CSS profile essentially ensures this to be true, tracking home equity and retirement investment funds as part of the lengthy application. It’ll also cost you an additional $25 for every school receiving your CSS application unless you fall below the income threshold for a waiver. This is deeply discouraging, as college is already so expensive. While it is necessary for colleges to thoroughly evaluate students applying for financial aid to make sure they are giving the suitable amount, evaluating the primary residence value of any applicant does not indicate how much wealth their family is truly able to put toward their child’s college education.
Another promise most top schools make to domestic applicants is the evaluation of applications in a “need-blind” context. Yet every school in the Common Application requires the student to check a mandatory box if they wish to apply for financial aid. In 2022, 16 top colleges, including those in the Ivy League, were accused of making false claims of need-blind admissions that they weren’t following through with. The lawsuit revealed clear patterns of admissions at select schools: students who didn’t apply for aid had better results compared to students who did apply for aid.
“When colleges say they are need-blind, they are saying they will not consider your ability to pay during the admissions process,” college and career adviser Kathy Tang said. “Keep in mind that what you think you can afford and what they think you can afford may not be the same.”
Students applying for financial aid are disadvantaged in this process. As much as colleges promise to expand diversity and make sure every student can afford an education, it seems telling that they can turn away applicants hoping for financial aid before they even get into the school.
What needs to change are the questions asked and promises made. Factors like home equity and retirement savings should not be evaluated as part of assessing the demonstrated financial need of a student applying to college. Instead, schools should pay greater attention to a student’s cost of living relative to where they reside, and factor it into how much money the family is expected to pay. The application process needs to be simplified, perhaps into a centralized system that gives a standard dollar amount of each student’s need to each school in its aid calculation process. If a college cannot truly afford to help all students and meet their true demonstrated need, they should not be broadcasting any empty promises.
