[jc3900]

Devil's advocate here: jc3900, are you applying to only private schools? I'm wondering if you think that states should not even be in the business of operating universities and colleges. If everyone should pay their own way through, why should I pay taxes to make it cheaper for you (or the poor or anyone else) or even to make available a university at all? Shouldn't we just close down our state schools?

Oh man did you hit that out of the park. That is exactly my view. If only I had your eloquece. Yep, education is not at all a function of government period. For those of you who own a home, you probably don't even want to know how much money you pay up to have your two kids go through highschool for free.

The argument is that if you are a well-qualified candidate, your entire college education would be merit-based aid and you would not need to get need-based aid. The second part of the argument is that the student and the parents are required to exhaust their entire assets before need-based aid will kick in.


Your argument would be that need-based aid should be eliminated completely, and we should go to a 100% merit-based aid system.


Please be aware that lawmakers attribute poor academic performance to low income. So the idea of need-based aid is to help offset some of the inequities faced by low income students.

Yes, I would like to see a system where you can only reduce the cost of an institution by merit aid only. Any institutional financial aid would be eliminated and given to everyone so that the cost of attending all around would be reduced. Lawmakers may attribute poor academic performance to low income, but is taking away financial aid going to keep poor people from going to college? No it won't stop them from going to college and that is because the benefits outweigh the costs greatly even if you have to borrow the money to get through.