Item — HN Reader

This is nothing new. This happens at every top 20 private college/university respectively. I went to Haverford College [1] and paid nothing on tuition. Divorced parents and 10 siblings... That'll do it. A friend from high school went to Duke free too for similar reasons. And another friend went to Penn for free because of her parents' state too.

The only sad thing is how few people know about this. Under-privileged students think they can only afford state schools. In truth, I couldn't even afford a state school. Only a private college/university would give me the full financial aid that I needed to attend.

Thankfully programs like Questbridge[2] (it's not spam, surprisingly) help facilitate under-priveleged students applying to and attending top private schools.

[1] - http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

[2] - http://www.questbridge.org/

7 comments

It is true that below some income level many schools will expect no parental contribution, but the $125k / year level announced by Stanford is particularly high. Filling out the calculator at the education department(1) it appears that the FASFA expected family contribution for that income level would be somewhere around $20k (+/- depending on things like assets and family size).

Harvard, for example, makes that guarantee only as to students whose parents' income is up to $65,000 a year (2)

1 https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm

2 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426

Edit: In light of dollaaron's correction below, this is much less significant than I thought at first glance. This part "Scholarship or grant funds will be provided to cover these costs in lieu of a parental contribution" is still above and beyond what many schools do, but is similar to Princeton and Harvard, as he points out.

This is a no tuition guarantee, not a no parental contribution guarantee. In effect they are saying that if you make under 125,000, you'll only pay 20-25k for living expenses (room/board/textbooks/etc), which is similar to Harvard and Princeton, considering they both try to structure aid so families do not have to take loans out to pay them. Coincidentally (or not), this is also equivalent to the FAFSA EFC as you mentioned.

In this announcement Stanford clearly says that the no parental contribution level is 65,000, raised from 60,000 and now equivalent to Harvard/Princeton.

The "parental contribution level" was always frustrating to me. There's no way my parents were going to pay for my education, so that number being high and tuition being zero doesn't really help anything.

Am I misunderstanding how that works, or are they just saying "the parents should pay x and the student z - x" when they really mean "the total cost is z?"

'The only sad thing is how few people know about this. Under-privileged students think they can only afford state schools.'

This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.

How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools and have middle class jobs (which themselves are under pressure now). So the parents and neighbors didn't know anything about Ivy League schools or how to propel their own kids into the upper class.

By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into. It's takes especially thoughtful parents or other older role models (like great teachers or counselors) to see a kids potential and tell them about their life options.

Some kids have this experience (maybe it's a family friend or distant relative that happens to be very wealthy and shines a light on possibilities to the kid), but most do not.

> This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.

Hmm, I'm skeptical that it was a cultural issue. I went to a suburban high school and the issue wasn't that we didn't somehow know about the top schools, it's that you had virtually zero chance of getting in.

My best friends were the top couple students from my year and the year before me and I watched them mortified as the pattern played out -- they each applied to several top tier universities and were deflated when the stream of rejections came in (though one got into Notre Dame). Just being a valedictorian, active, national merit scholar wasn't enough. Most ended up going to their "safety" schools -- either University of Texas or Texas A&M.

My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools. As such, I think this announcement is more meaningful for folks from genuinely poor backgrounds than for those from relative suburban privilege.

>My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools.

90% of my graduating class fits that description. Out of a graduating class of 500 I'd say close to 10% of my class got into an Ivy League. Hell we had 9 get into Cornell alone. The 2013 class sent about 5%. It is a public HS but they offered tons of AP/extra curriculars/etc.

That's impressive. But I think we're working with different notions of suburban. For a suburban high school to have a graduating class of 500, you were presumably around a large population center? Where I grew up, that was the size of the high schools in the city (of about 120k).

My school district, an amalgamation of suburban enclaves and small towns, only had about a third of that. I think being close to a larger city means probably a more sophisticated suburban population (I don't think I'd ever met anyone who'd been to an Ivy-ish school prior to college) and larger schools, which allows for more stratified educational tracks.

All depends on how big the regions are and how many schools they build. My regional suburbia high school had 350 per class.

Am I misinterpreting, 350 in one classroom, or does class here mean what I'd think of as 'subject' ?

It means what you probably think of as "year".

White middle-class male here, graduated HS in 2000. Got perfect 800 on SAT Math, National Merit Finalist, played two sports. Rejected by both Notre Dame and Stanford. Not sure what else I could've done.

No sour grapes, that's just the way it is.

GPA would be the other concern, if it's not perfect...

> "How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools"

I'm skeptical this is a problem. There are some FANTASTIC public universities (many people choose to go to out of state).

> "By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into."

There's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to go to a public university. Many of us decided to attend one instead of private ones.

And does Stanford really make a difference over a state school over the long term? Motivation and talent are more more important than a particular school.

Yes, it does. While at the end everything depends on the student, Stanford offers better connections with companies, a brand name that helps get interviews, and really, just better education. I've watched plenty of Stanford lectures and every professor I watch there is way better than most of mine.

All of this makes a big difference when getting your first couple of jobs. After that, it doesn't matter as much.

"The famous paper Estimating the Return to College Selectivity Over the Career Using Administrative Earning Data (2011) by Dale and Krueger raises the possibility that on average, attending a more selective college doesn’t raise earnings at all. They found that as a group, there was no statistically significant difference in income later in life between students who went to more selective colleges and students who went to less selective colleges. Their finding is somewhat robust: it’s based on a large (~10k) sample size, it’s true both of the class of 1976 and the class of 1989, it’s true of the class of 1976 from age 25 through age 50 and it’s true both of men and of women."

http://cognitomentoring.org/blog/how-much-does-where-you-go-...

Looking at the earnings of graduates, it doesn't appear that Stanford graduates earn much more than other graduates. It seems like the degree mix the institution awards and the cost of living of the area have the greatest impact on post college earnings. We also need to remember that computer science students comprise just a small portion of the overall student body. http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/full-list...

In regards to the online content, keep in mind that this content has been developed and published with the knowledge that tens of thousands of people will watch it, so it is important to ensure it is of high quality.

In general, I'm really starting to question any reports on salary alone once it gets past $100K/year.

After that point, performance bonuses in their many forms can have such a large impact and that doesn't seem to be represented in salary comparisons.

What the student gains from college is up to the student themselves. But if a student tries just as hard at Standford for example, compared to some other, smaller school, then the rate at which they succeed or find top notch jobs/internships is much higher than the other student. Basically, the name branding gained through a school like Stanford is a catalyst towards success. It is achievable everywhere, but the rate at which it is gained is different and the name of your university does make a difference there.

> Motivation and talent are more more important than a particular school.

That is probably true, but there are undeniable benefits from the networking that happens at schools like Stanford. So if you have motivation and talent, you may derive even more benefit from going to an Ivy or similar school.

At one time (forty or so years back) this was definitely so. I used to say that the closest I heard to college counseling was the obiter dictum of one of the secretaries that you needed a 1200 combined SAT to get into Notre Dame. The salutatorian of the class ahead of mine got into Princeton, deferred a year, and I don't know who put the idea in his head, but probably nobody at the school. Most of my classmates went to state schools--generally in-state, a few promising jocks elsewhere. I went to a local private university that offered some money, knowing no way to distinguish it from any other school.

My brother worked at Questbridge for a few years. They place low-income and disadvantaged (but brilliant kids) at top schools, for free rides. The top schools can't get enough of students like you, but they're hard to find. Questbridge's model is similar to executive headhunters. I believe they do approx. 20400 students a year. The challenging part is scaling what they do, since it's very manual labor intensive.

It is true but only for the most part. My family income was below 60K, but my aid packages varied wildly among supposed peer institutions.

Harvard was the most generous, fully funded tuition + room/board + clothing stipend (presumably to keep up with the lifestyles of what would have been my wealthier classmates) + transportation stipend to fly back home for holidays.

All of the other Ivies (Columbia, Cornell, Penn) had roughly the same deal - full tuition and room/board

Hopkins - I required that I borrow 15k over 4 years to attend. Interestingly, this is the school I ended up going to.

> Hopkins - I required that I borrow 15k over 4 years to attend. Interestingly, this is the school I ended up going to.

If you don't mind me asking, why did you make that (seemingly counterintuitive) choice?

Hopkins usually wouldn't be considered as a peer to the top schools which compete on aid packages.

You username was familiar so I took a peek at your profile. We just met at Interact, so I messaged my response to you on Facebook :)

I went to an Ivy that made a "no loan" guarantee for me. Each successive year, their aid package got successively worse so I received less grant aid. I ended up with $10k in debt by the time I graduated.

An ivy league school and you ended up 10K in debt. Congratulations, you ended up owing very little for a very expensive education.

...clothing stipend (presumably to keep up with the lifestyles of what would have been my wealthier classmates)...

It might just be a way of saying "pocket money", but if someone objected, this could be justified by Boston's climate. Poor students from warmer places are unlikely to own a sufficient range of coats and hats.

It's true that every top 20 private college/university allows in a great many people for free.

However, there's a big difference between divorced parents and 10 siblings, and a situation in which I grew up: one sibling, married parents, lower middle class income, but my father had a ton of school loans. The result was that my family income was high enough that I qualified for reduced tuition at most private schools, but nowhere near enough reduction to make most schools viable. Cost was literally the only factor I was able to consider in my choice of school, and even having chosen the school which offered me the best financial aid, I was unable to complete school due to cost.

The fact is, the cost of education has risen to the point that higher education isn't available even to people in the middle class.

$125K/year family income reaches well into the middle class. I would have paid nothing to go to Stanford, and in fact I still would pay nothing to go to Stanford. I may actually apply and try to finish my degree. :)

Shout out for Haverford folks in tech. Are you in the bay area? Not a ton of us out here. We did meet up last week though: https://www.facebook.com/events/743588762415575/ add yourself to the group.

Wish that existed up here in Seattle!

Once I move in July, there will be at least two Haverford software engineers in Seattle. That's enough for a meetup.

I wouldn't send this message through HN, but I don't know another way to contact you. If you join one of the Haverford LinkedIn groups, we can talk that way and stop spamming this thread.

Great info! Thanks. Any idea about funding sources like QuestBridge for Graduate students coming to US for study from abroad?