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Picking arbitrary fractions of the total number of students admitted misses the point. My understanding is that it comes down to school policy: those who are offered admission and accept, but have financial need (demonstrated via the FAFSA, or the equivalent for private universities, if not) are given financial aid proportional to their need. While applying to colleges, I noticed that this is the policy at many universities.

As a result, the ones who get financial aid for tuition are the ones who really need it. Looking at the absolute number of students receiving aid isn't important.

I wasn't clear and I think you missed my point, please see my edit.

Most colleges are moving towards need-blind admissions too, debunking the common complaint that they don't admit low-income students because they'd rather admit students who can pay.

It is also important to note that these types of policies are more common the more elite a university is.

Of course elite universities don't make admissions decisions based on income. They make admissions decisions based on things like "child of an alumnus", "high SAT scores", or "good grades at a private prep school", none of which are known to correlate with income /s

Intelligence is one of the most genetically inheritable traits. Combined with environmental factors it's no wonder SAT scores and grades would correlate highly with parental income.

> Intelligence is one of the most genetically inheritable traits.

Interesting. Do you have any sources for that?

100% environmental.

We had an "elite" SAT training program at my high school. (A very smart teacher ran it). Learned 100 words per week, by straight up rote memorization. Mastered math formulas to the point that you could do them without understanding the theory. Studied for the test, not for the concepts.

We all weren't learning anything useful. It was basic rote memorization, no concepts, no nothing. Students were pronouncing "Epitome" as "Epi-tom" (instead of "e-pit-tom-ee"). But it don't matter, as long as you recognized the unfamiliar words and memorized dictionary definitions... and then practiced analogies for 2 to 3 months at a time... you will get it.

We learned how the SAT was graded, how to pick out easy questions. How to skip the harder questions that mattered less for your score... and focus your mind (while it was still fresh) on the more important questions. We even learned patterns to hypothesize which of the sections wasn't gonna be graded. (one section of the SAT is not graded. It is a baseline for next-year's SAT)

After the SAT, most of us forgot the meanings of those words. But we got the score we needed to get into college.

Those who study the SAT have a supreme advantage over those who don't study it. Everyone who took the class shot up by like 200 points in both Math and Reading.

The teacher was very frank. It was a "study for the test", "beat the test" attitude. And frankly, it worked. I'm pretty sure anyone who went through the training I did would have scored 1300 minimum on the 1600 test.

Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Male, Female, Christian, Jewish, Muslims. Everyone you can think of was in this class, and everyone got significantly better at taking the SAT.

> Most colleges are moving towards need-blind admissions too

Need-blind? Like, purely based on merit? I don't think that's helpful. If the point is to help disadvantaged kids, their scores need to be weighted by their circumstances.

That is still an issue, but it is better than purposefully weighting admissions toward applicants who can afford full tuition.

As far as I understand it, they ignore FAFSA information but could probably still get an idea of the kid's background based on school, personal statements, etc. I'll admit, it sounds like this wouldn't be as effective for helping disadvantaged students. On the other hand, I think it gives schools plausible deniability for admitting a high number of students who wouldn't need financial aid, giving the school more money.

What happens when those circumstances have disadvantaged a child in a way that cannot be recovered (for example, I've seen a documentary on over medicated children who were screwed up by the medication so badly that they still have clear issues even years after being taken off).

Please google "need-blind admission lie"

Okay, but you could use that logic to claim (possibly validly, though I don't think so) that nobody should care about the Ivies because they only make up a fraction of schools (.08% times 5 = .4% of admissions, according to your data). This is not a sound argument, though, since very few of the 5 million students admitted to universities in the US would be competitive applicants at the Ivies. The pool of competitive applicants is much, much smaller.

"To address most of the responses below. I'm implying that even if all appropriate students applied for these programs, as the article suggests, it wouldn't make a difference because some tiny fraction of them would be admitted."

The article doesn't suggest that every student should apply, just that many academically qualified students are missing an opportunity to apply (even if that opportunity only results in a ~10% chance of acceptance, that's still a missed opportunity).

EDIT: Formatting.

>Okay, but you could use that logic to claim (possibly validly, though I don't think so) that nobody should care about the Ivies because they only make up a fraction of schools (.08% times 5 = .4% of admissions, according to your data). This is not a sound argument, though, since very few of the 5 million students admitted to universities in the US would be competitive applicants at the Ivies. The pool of competitive applicants is much, much smaller.

Well, we mostly shouldn't care about the Ivies. We want to solve the problems of the masses, not of some Chosen Elect (even if the Choice is based on academic qualification, weighted by personal background).

Are you implying that there are people who get accepted to those programs but don't get free tuition because of limits to those scholarships? Or are you talking about the talented high school students who aren't quite "good" enough to get accepted to one of these schools? If it's the latter then it's not really fair to only include the number of students who get free tuition from the top 5 or so schools. There are many other good private and public schools which provide partial or full scholarships for good students. Some examples include Texas A&M, Duke, and Dartmouth[1].

Also, any high schooler in Georgia who graduates with at least a 3.0 GPA gets 4 years worth of tuition to an in-state university (including Georgia Tech) as long as they hold that GPA through college[2]. The University of Alabama has something similar as well. There are other optiosn which base the tuition scholarships on ACT scores [3]. Here are 26 schools with achievement-based and 15 schools with need-based scholarships [4] (There's starting to be some overlap in my lists)

These don't all include the total cost (housing and food), but there are other grants and scholarships that could help with that. I'm sure part of the problem is making kids aware of these opportunities. I can see how, if they don't have good guidance counselors, they may just assume nothing like them exists. It would be interesting to see some statistics on how many students take advantage of these opportunities. (And just to be clear, I'm not implying that we can't improve the situation, only that people often underestimate the amount of help that is available)

[1] http://affordableschools.net/20-tuition-free-colleges/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_Scholarship

[3] http://panthersfutures.weebly.com/colleges-with-free-tuition...

[4] http://www.advantageedu.com/blog/2008/100-free-college-rides...

Please check my edit above.

Thanks for the extra information. It would have been nice if the article author brought up some statistics that could show whether programs like these are under used.

You can't blame the ivies because other schools charge too much.

would say the poor students who don't get free admission are credit constrained? can't they just get a loan?

It's hard to know what the outcome of your education is going to be, so the risk of not being able to pay off a loan may just be too great. I am not aware of any elite colleges publishing statistics on things like the job placement rate and post-graduation income of lower income students. (On that note, if anyone knows where to get these numbers I would love to take a look.)

i don't have the numbers but it's very interesting u say that because one of my best friends and i are actually going to apply to this summer yc batch with our idea of 'human capital' where we pay for poor, but very bright students to go to university and in return they give us a small % of their lifetime income. to be honest the reason we are excited about htis idea is actually more from the investor stand-point (would love ur feedback if u're interested http://nicholasdrake.svbtle.com/human-capital-investing-in-t...). but we also thikn it has lots of nice properties from the student side in particular, debt is constant regardless of your situation, whereas as we're 'taking equity' in the students if you can't find a job or only a low paying job you pay much less. of course, to make it balance it out if you are super successful you have to pay more, but we think for poor and thus likely risk averse students this is a great way to finance an education. would be really great to have your feedback if you have time.

I can't comment on the numbers because I'm not familiar with the economics of those countries, but I have a few thoughts:

1) "Human capital" sounds really icky. Think of a new buzzword.

2) "Lifetime income" again gives off a bit of an indentured servitude vibe. I haven't done market research (although going by that writeup, neither have you), but I suspect people would be much more amenable to a larger percentage (10-25%) with an expiration date (say 10 years).

thanks for the feedback. yeah there is a definitley a danger that human capital just gets interpreted as slavery... i studied econ at uni where human capital is kinda the positive buzz word, like invest in educating your workforce etc. etc.

u may very well be right that a higher percentage of income for a shorter period of time makes sense (or if it is lifetime income allow some buyout clause) - the big advantage of the lifetime aspect is you can basically trade future long-term consumption when you're income is higher to get higher consumption now when you're income is lower... it also allows a transfer from people who make lots of money to those who make less (when you apply to university you don't know which group you will be in)...

your feedback is really helpful, if you have time please take a look at our yc app https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224487, if it seems that we haven't done our research/holes in our thinking we defintley want to know now!! thanks so much!