For many years, from atop our soapbox in elite college admissions, we at Ivy Coach have called out many of America’s top universities for claiming to offer need-blind admissions policies. In no uncertain terms, we called need-blind admissions a lie, a lie perpetuated by admissions officers touting the party line as they market their institutions to potential candidates.

And over the years in which we at Ivy Coach have been poking holes in so-called need-blind admissions policies, it’s not as though folks in the admissions community haven’t made efforts to attack our arguments. But, while it’s taken several years, the truth has, alas, come out: need-blind admissions has always been a lie.

Elite Colleges Were Sued for Colluding on Financial Aid

In a class-action lawsuit filed by former students in 2022, 16 institutions that claimed to be need-blind — Yale University, Columbia University, Duke University, Brown University, Emory University, Georgetown University, the California Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame, Rice University, and the University of Chicago — were named as defendants, accused of conspiring to minimize financial aid offers for middle-class families.

The 16 schools were, at the time of the filing, members of the 568 Presidents Group. Capitalizing on a federal antitrust exemption with a contingency that these schools would not consider a student’s ability to pay when weighing their case for admission as they set financial aid formulas, as it turns out, they did consider a student’s ability to pay. As such, the 568 Presidents Group has since been dissolved, and thus far, in 2023 and 2024, ten institutions have settled to the tune of $284 million.

That’s right. $284 million. So, while these schools deny culpability, the $284 (and growing!) settlement speaks volumes. For many years, despite claims so loudly and vociferously that they operated blind to a student’s ability to pay, they were very much need-aware. And, yes, they remain need-aware to this day.

Elite Colleges Need Full-Paying Students

Perhaps Paul Tough said it best five years ago in a New York Times Magazine exposé on the need-blind admissions farce. As he wrote at the time, “Over the last decade, two distinct conversations about college admissions and class have been taking place in the United States. The first one has been conducted in public…The premise of this conversation is that inequity in higher education is mostly a demand-side problem: Poor kids are making regrettable miscalculations as they apply to college. Selective colleges would love to admit more low-income students — if only they could find enough highly qualified ones who could meet their academic standards.”

Tough went on, “The second conversation is the one that has been going on among the professionals who labor behind the scenes in admissions offices — or ’enrollment management’ offices, as they are now more commonly known. This conversation, held more often in private, starts from the premise that the biggest barriers to opportunity for low-income students in higher education are on the supply side — in the universities themselves, and specifically in the admissions office. Enrollment managers know there is no shortage of deserving low-income students applying to good colleges. They know this because they regularly reject them — not because they don’t want to admit these students, but because they can’t afford to.”

Are Need-Blind Schools Really Need-Blind?

Now, we know you might be a bit skeptical that America’s elite colleges are not truly need-blind. After all, you’ve likely been to several college information sessions. You’ve heard so many admissions officers claim their school was need-blind. Some may have even truthfully acknowledged that they’re not need-blind for international applicants. And you believe in the goodness of people. As such, you want proof that they’re need-blind for domestic applicants. Well, we’ve got the proof in the pudding:

• If colleges were truly need-blind, then why is there a question on just about every applicant’s supplement — for both domestic and international students — asking if the student needs financial aid? Why wouldn’t this question be on a separate document that admissions officers aren’t privy to when evaluating an applicant’s file? Wouldn’t that be easy enough to fix?
• Colleges rely on tuition dollars. Not every college has an endowment the size of Harvard University’s. And no school — not even Harvard — wishes to dip into its endowment to fund students’ educations. They want to invest their endowments so they’ll grow rather than shrink. Tuition dollars are essential to keeping colleges running. If a school admitted a class in which virtually everyone needed financial aid (which is a risk they’d be taking if they were truly need-blind), they’d risk dipping into their endowment and running on fumes.

Some Colleges Truthfully Assert They’re Need-Aware

Some schools claim not to be need-blind but rather to be need-aware — and these schools are telling it like it is. They acknowledge that they factor in a family’s ability to pay the full freight of tuition when weighing a student’s case for admission. If only so many schools claiming to be need-blind instead touted being need-aware, then the whole financial aid process would be much more straightforward.

We can hear your wheels turning. Maybe you’re asking yourself, “But that’s what the admissions officers told me. Heck, they told it to the whole roomful of students and parents. They don’t factor in a student’s ability to pay when weighing their case for admission.”

Admissions Officers Are Human and Humans Tell Untruths

Oh, we know. Admissions officers are human beings. They tell truths and untruths — much like everyone else. Regarding the big need-blind lie, admissions officers have perpetuated this falsehood for many years. Indeed, in some cases, these gatekeepers have been telling this untruth for so many years they just might have started believing their own marketing spin.

In Fact, Many Admissions Officers Know They’re Telling Untruths

But we at Ivy Coach have hired enough former admissions officers over the years from our nation’s most elite universities to know that not only are most top colleges not need-blind, but most admissions officers aren’t all that susceptible to falling for their spin. Most knew full well that their school wasn’t need-blind despite their proclamations to the contrary. Yet they asserted as much anyway because it was their job.

Should You Check the Financial Aid Box? Not If You Can Help It

While there are many ways students can improve their cases for admission to highly selective colleges, as this post focuses on financial aid, let’s stick to the headline: don’t apply for financial aid (especially if you don’t need it and especially if you don’t qualify for assistance). And, if you’re unsure if you qualify, chances are you don’t qualify. Parents and students can determine if they are eligible for aid online through the Net Price Calculator on every college’s website.

If You’re Unsure If You Qualify for Financial Aid, You Might Get Very Little

When our clients at Ivy Coach ask us about seeking financial aid, do you know the first words out of our mouths? It goes something like, “If you can afford our services, you can likely afford the full cost of tuition. Don’t apply for aid. It will significantly hurt your child’s case for admission. Financial aid is for students who absolutely need the money to subsidize their college educations. If you’re unsure if you qualify for aid, they’ll probably give you two nickels anyway. Are those two nickels worth hurting your child’s case for admission?”

Need-Blind Admissions Has Always Been a Lie

The fact is that elite colleges have long sought to admit middle and low-income students. But to admit students from across the socioeconomic spectrum, they must admit full-paying students to subsidize the cost of their less affluent peers. To do so, they can’t be need-blind. Instead, they need to be need-aware. We at Ivy Coach have said as much for decades, calling these schools out for their blatant untruths. The recent settlements by ten of America’s top universities in the aforementioned class-action lawsuit substantiate our long-held claims. Mic drop.