Ohio State

Part Two on Comparing Financial Aid Awards

Posted on Wed, 04/03/2013 - 14:29

Diane Stemper, Executive Director of Financial Aid at The Ohio State University, returns today with the second of a two-part post on comparing financial aid awards so that students and their families can be wise consumers and better understand what they are being offered and signing on for. Yesterday Stemper laid out the vocabulary and content of financial aid award letters along with a step-by-step plan for comparing aid awards. You can see Part One of Stemper's post here. Today, she has more advice for students and families on understanding aid awards as smart consumers, as well as guidance for interacting with financial aid offices and a resource list for tools that can help families in the comparison process.

Be Aware:

·         Colleges may state they meet “full need” – sounds great, but how much of that is loans?

·         Are parent loans listed as part of the financial aid award?  If so, it may look like you have sufficient financial aid to meet your costs, but part of this could be debt that your parents are incurring on top of your own student loan debt.

Coming to Terms with What Colleges Expect You to Pay

Posted on Mon, 04/01/2013 - 10:00

We're pleased to share with you today an excellent piece by W. Kent Barnds, Vice President of Enrollment, Communication and Planning at Augustana College. Barnds sheds always welcome light on the concept and reality of the EFC or Expected Family Contribution, showing how it is possible that a student with an EFC of $15,000 and considering three colleges with the same price might be expected to pay $19,500 at one and $9,500 at another.

College Admission in the Wall Street Journal

Posted on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 19:24

Te Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2012 Should Colleges Be Factories for the 1%? Obama wants the feds to report what a college's graduates earn. That's no way to judge an educational institution. By Robin Mamlet and Christine VanDeVelde In his recently unveiled Blueprint for College Affordability, President Obama calls for "collecting earnings and employment information for colleges and universities, so that students can have an even better sense of the life they'll be able to build once they graduate." In other words, the government wants to publish statistics on what graduates earn after leaving Harvard or Ohio State or Duke. The results are unlikely to surprise. For all the costs of collecting and collating this information—for the sake of reducing the costs of education, no less—it will show what is intuitively obvious: On average, Ivy League grads earn more. But the information will be worse than useless for college-bound students because it will send them all the wrong signals. The Obama administration decries the privilege of the top 1%, yet the president is suggesting that the likelihood of joining that 1% should be a top factor in college selection. That puts the government's imprimatur on the idea that earning potential trumps learning potential—and it runs counter to everything most educators believe in. Earnings power is not a good proxy for educational excellence.