What is my "perfect college"
As more and more students enter college, the financial aid system is beginning to have to balance between supply and demand. Financial aid offices are being forced to use their funds to attract the strongest applicants. The strongest applicants will be the students who have the most convincing record of academic and extracurricular accomplishment, school and community involvement, and the obvious desire to succeed in life.
Years ago colleges looked at financial aid as a charitable procedure. Today, financial aid has become a strategic part of the plan that colleges and universities use to recruit those students who they wish to have attend.
Colleges commonly use the terms scholarships, grants, and tuition discounts when discussing their funding. In reality, these monies are actually rate reductions off the institution’s total cost of attendance. The majority of colleges are using these reductions to attract the best blend of good students and paying customers. Their business approach is to get the family to pay as much as possible and still get the student to attend. Although this admission battle between colleges is becoming more widely known, behind the scenes most colleges are actually in a huge financial battle to fill their seats with the most attractive candidates.
The very wealthy schools (basically those known as the Ivy League colleges) are still most often able to command that a student pay the full price. Bear in mind that this is not true in all cases, but certainly in most. On the other hand, there are hundreds of excellent institutions that are very comparable to the Ivy Leaguers. These are primarily the private institutions that offer a wide range of course/major specialties. These colleges have found themselves in the middle of the bidding war to attract desirable students. These institutions are where the majority of the real educational bargains can be found. These institutions offer the finest education, most often at a discounted rate (as compared to their cost of attendance figures that are publicized). Here you will certainly get more for your money. You must be careful though. Although these institutions will most often discount, they will also try to reduce their discounts to students who may be less attractive or more likely to attend no matter what the offer of funding may be.
Due to the intense competition to keep enrollment up, these colleges are constantly looking for those desirable students whose decision to attend may be swayed by financial aid. This is truly what is known as a buyer’s market in the business world. This buyer’s market puts the student and his family in a very strong position, and in many cases allows them to lead the negotiations for additional aid when proper negotiation procedure is followed.
When it comes to selecting the “Perfect” college for you, it is not all about the money. The courses offered, the location and size of the campus, and the quality of the education are all huge considerations. Although the money is not your sole consideration, it very definitely plays a large role. Everyone wants the best value for their money invested.
Exploring all of your educational options and keeping those options open until the latest possible moment can have a huge impact on the remainder of your life. What you may be offered from one institution may be very different from what the next one is willing to discount just to get you to attend.
This current supply and demand situation that exists in the college enrollment arena just emphasizes something that we have mentioned several times previously – the importance of effectively preparing yourself while in high school. This preparation not only helps make you a well-rounded person; it will also help make you a more attractive candidate for membership in their exclusive college community. Being a more attractive candidate definitely puts you in a stronger position when it comes to attending and paying for the college of your dreams.