It is a gut-wrenching question: “Do you intend to apply for financial aid?” Students are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Many colleges say they have a need-blind admissions policy — but is it realistic that they will not consider an applicant’s need for financial aid when deciding who gets admitted?

While elite universities, such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale, are completely need-blind and provide the funds for students to attend, need-aware schools make up the majority. They consider each applicant’s finances in their admissions decisions, which provides them the ability to meet the financial needs of their accepted applicants. If there is a choice between two virtually identical applicants, the one who does not need financial aid is more likely to get in.

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Need-blind admissions is a quixotic goal and unrealistic for colleges with limited endowments. The reality is that colleges eagerly accept those who can pay the full fare. By accepting more students who can afford to pay full price allows colleges to better afford those who cannot as detailed by The New York Times.

Students who respond “no” to the financial aid question on the college application can apply for it later, once they have been admitted to that school. However, there is a downside.

“That student will not get a very good package. The institutional grant aid available to needy students will have already been used,” said Bart Astor, author of the recent book, “Graduate from College Debt-Free.” However, since financial aid is a year-by-year decision, the student may receive a more substantial aid package his sophomore year. “If a school wants your child, the school will work with you to figure out a way for you to pay to the extent you can,” said Astor. To some parents, it is worth taking a financial hit for freshman year in order to secure admissions.

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The irony is that parents who are financially responsible are discriminated against. “The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) punishes my family each year for our fiscal responsibility,” said one father in Westchester County, New York.

As detailed by the Federal Student Aid’s official website, a family’s eligibility is calculated by taking the student’s cost of attendance, or COA, minus the estimated family contribution, or EFC. The COA is how much the university charges per year, while the EFC focuses on the parents’ and students’ taxable incomes and assets.

“Even though most of my assets are intended for retirement, the FAFSA looks at those accounts as ways to pay for my son’s college,” said the father. “If the FAFSA were to just look at my family’s income, our EFC would drop considerably.” Those who do not save are frequently rewarded, and websites such as finaid.org provide parents with suggestions as to how to beat the system.

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The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2015-2016 academic year was $32,405 at private colleges, $9,410 for state residents at public colleges, and $23,893 for out-of-state residents attending public universities, according to the College Board. Along with the approximate $10,000 needed for room and board, the cost of an academic year at a private college approaches the U.S. median household income. And with the majority of students taking six years to earn their bachelor’s degree, as detailed by the U.S. Department of Education, the real cost of a college degree is exorbitant.

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It is well-known that college tuition has been rising faster than inflation — it has increased 1,120 percent over the past 30 years, according to Bloomberg News. Upon graduation, a student leaves college with, on average, $30,100 in debt according to The Institute for College Access and Success. And student loans remain an albatross: They cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. To discharge a student loan, the student must prove to a judge that not discharging the debt would cause him “undue hardship.”

Rather than continue with the traditional college-debt model, there are alternatives. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel encourages students to escape the debt trap by giving them $100,000 fellowships not to go to college, but to start their own businesses. As Thiel said in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Students today are taking on more debt, and recently tightened bankruptcy laws make it more difficult to shake that debt … those factors make higher education a risky investment.”

Young people need to have some skin in the game to reach their full potential.

Another alternative is Enstitute, which offers two-year apprenticeships with entrepreneurs in lieu of college. Likewise, Praxis is an apprenticeship program that trains young men and women. The results have been impressive: Ninety-eight percent of participants have received full-time job offers for a minimum of $40,000 per year, according to Praxis CEO and co-founder Dave Blanchard.

The truth is that college may not be worth the investment. Nearly 50 percent of recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, as detailed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. However, their college debt remains firmly in place.

Rather than shoulder the financial burden entirely on their own, parents should put some of the load on their child. A recent study by Dr. Laura Hamilton at the University of California-Merced found that the more money parents pay for their child’s college education, the more poorly their child performs academically. Young people need to have some skin in the game to reach their full potential.

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But most importantly, prior to applying to any college, parents and students need to be completely aware of each school’s financial aid policy. Need-blind and need-aware are not synonymous and can alter not just a student’s college experience.

Daniel Riseman, founder of Riseman Educational Consulting in Irvington, New York, has been counseling students and working with families for 16 years.