Colleges taking another look at value of merit-based aid

[asteriskea]

<p>
[quote]
Davidson College is today announcing that it will change future financial aid packages so that students will no longer need to borrow anything...</p>

<p>The move comes at a time that many colleges are rethinking their aid and loan policies. Just last week, Hamilton College, for example, announced that it was eliminating all merit scholarships and shifting the funds to need-based aid. Among the reasons Hamilton cited was a belief that demographics in the years ahead would require greater support for need-based financial aid...</p>

<p>Demographic projections also influenced Davidson. ?We are concerned by the faces not applying to Davidson because they don?t believe that the college is affordable,? said Christopher J. Gruber, vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid.</p>

<p>Gruber said that the college has noticed a shift in recent years among would-be applicants from the lowest income families. It used to be possible to get such students to apply, tell them about the availability of financial aid, and then at the time of admission explain how an aid package would make the college affordable, Gruber said. Then the admitted applicant would be comparing aid packages, and Davidson?s was favorable, he said.</p>

<p>Now, he said, more would-be applicants ? when they hear about the costs (total for next year will be close to $41,000) ? are not applying at all, fearing that the only way they could end up with an aid package would be with one that had lots of loans.</p>

<p>?These students weren?t even applying to us,? Gruber said. Indeed the latest data posted about the college at the Economic Diversity of Colleges Web site shows relatively low figures at the college for low-income families and Pell Grant recipients.</p>

<p>Looking ahead, more students in the age cohort for a residential liberal arts education are going to come from low-income families, he said, so the college wanted to position itself for them. Davidson is already among a small group of private colleges with need-blind admissions, meaning that need for financial aid is not a factor in admissions decisions and it has a policy of meeting the full need of admitted applicants.</p>

<p>Notably, Davidson had already taken steps to limit loans. Last year, the college adopted a policy of limiting the loan component of aid packages to $3,000 a year. (The new policy cut student debt over four years by $7,000. Previously, loan limits started at $4,000 for freshmen, going up $500 a year, so that after four years students graduated with $19,000 in debt.) While the decision to eliminate loans completely will cost the college an additional $3.5 million, Gruber said it was worth it to take loans out of the equation entirely.</p>

<p>Gruber said that he thought there was a chance other liberal arts colleges might match the policy, and that it would be ?beautiful? if that happened.</p>

<p>One aid expert, asked about the shift, questioned whether it made sense to completely eliminate loans, when some students and their families could afford modest loans.</p>

<p>But an economist of higher education said he saw the logic to the move. Michael McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation and former president of Macalester College, said that many private colleges these days focus on ?how to get more paying applicants,? so it is commendable for a college to be thinking about ways to get more low-income students...

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</p>

<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/19/davidson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/19/davidson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[standrews]

<p>My wife got this email from Davidson. She had loans from Davidson to pay off long after she graduated. This is a welcomed development for us as our HS Jr son has Davidson on his list. The different institution can and should work out aid options as they see fit to meet their particular goals. This another example.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Dear xxx,
Throughout Davidson?s history, alumni have demonstrated their conviction that the educational experience they cherish should be within the grasp of any qualified student. This has never been more evident than in the last twenty years, when nearly 400 new scholarship funds were created, most of them by alumni. Nevertheless, as costs have increased, a major barrier for students and their families continues to be the burden of debt they must incur to cover college expenses.</p>

<p>I am writing to tell you that students of Davidson College will have their demonstrated financial need funded entirely by grants and student employment, beginning in August 2007. The Trustees of the college unanimously adopted this new financial aid policy, which eliminates loans from all financial aid packages. Davidson will maintain its strict commitment to practicing need-blind admission.</p>

<p>The Trustees believe that this action is the necessary response to the financial situation facing many applicants and their families, and that it is consistent with a core value of the college?that a Davidson education should be affordable to all students, regardless of means. The college family?s longtime support of financial aid provided a platform of both leadership for and confidence in this historic change in policy.</p>

<p>In order to allow students to graduate from Davidson debt-free, the Trustees identified and committed the immediate funding needed to initiate this policy, while formally committing to a strategy for raising new monies to endow the program. Tuition increases will continue to be reserved solely for the improvement of the educational and residential experience of Davidson students.</p>

<p>In taking this stand for affordability, the Trustees considered the passion for accessibility that alumni have made clear. They extend their hand today in partnership with the entire college family to share the responsibility for opening Davidson?s doors to students who formerly would not have even dared to apply because of costs.</p>

<p>This is an historic moment for Davidson. We are the first national liberal arts college in the nation to take such an action, but it is our hope that others will follow a similar course, making affordable to any qualified student the kind of educational experience that changes lives.</p>

<p>Sincerely, Bobby Vagt

[/quote]
</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>An article in The State describes Davidson's new financial aid plan to eliminate loans from its financial aid packages by substituting grants and student employment to allow every student to graduate debt-free as a both a challenge and a "marketing coup":</p>

<p>
[quote]
The new policy, set to be announced today , is a marketing coup. It's also a challenge to other small, private liberal arts schools...</p>

<p>About a third of Davidson's 1,700 students require financial assistance. In the past, that came in the form of grants, loans and campus employment.</p>

<p>The cost of attending Davidson is $38,784 a year. But loans to cover that cost can create substantial debt for graduates. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 26 percent of Davidson students received loans that averaged $8,384 a year in the 2004-05 school year...</p>

<p>Benny Walker, Furman's vice president for enrollment, said Davidson traditionally has attracted fewer low-income students. He said it appears Davidson is trying to attract more highly qualified students from low-income families...</p>

<p>?The trustees are deeply committed to this new policy that will be funded entirely with new moneys,? John F. McCartney, chairman of Davidson's board, said in a prepared statement.</p>

<p>To permit students to graduate from Davidson debt-free, trustees have committed existing money and have plans to raise more, said McCartney.</p>

<p>The Davidson plan applies only to loans obtained through the school to pay tuition, fees, room and board. College officials said they have no control over students and their families who obtain privately arranged loans.</p>

<p>?This new policy is the necessary response to the financial situation facing many applicants and their families, and know it is consistent with a core value of the college,? said Davidson president Robert F. Vagt.</p>

<p>The new policy will take effect in August.</p>

<p>Davidson officials said the college will maintain needs-blind admissions, meaning a family's ability to pay has no bearing on whether a student is admitted.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/16932079.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/16932079.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[mini]

<p>Our big news is that my d. was just awarded a Kahn Institute Fellowship, which is one of the ways her college prepares students to do graduate-level research:</p>

<p>STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS
Each year, at the beginning of the Spring semester, the Director of the Institute invites members of the sophomore and junior classes to apply for fellowship in connection with projects that the Kahn Institute will support during the next academic year. </p>

<p>All project Fellows meet together weekly for a colloquium gathering and meal — a process of social and intellectual interaction that represents the core of the project. It is here that Fellows develop their research and discuss one another’s work-in-progress from the perspective of her/his own particular interests. In addition to these discussions, Fellows are encouraged to invite outside scholars and experts to participate in the research colloquium and to offer public events that are open to the academic community and the public. </p>

<p>Kahn Student Fellows are appointed for the duration of the project, and are required, along with Faculty Fellows, to participate in the project’s weekly research colloquium and meal, as well as the various special events organized by the project’s Fellows. Therefore, each student is expected to be able to commit to the project’s weekly schedule for the entire academic year.</p>

<p>Kahn Fellowships require a real commitment to scholarship, and that means developing research questions closely related to one of the yearlong projects, and spending the Fellowship year conducting the actual research. Student Fellows will be expected to read five or six of the key works in the field of their topic over the course of the summer preceding the project year and to develop at least three significant research questions, one of which will be pursued during the Fellowship year. Most students may not have had much experience defining a research topic or generating original research; therefore, the Kahn Institute has developed a two-part research orientation program for Student Fellows that consists of an introduction to available research tools in May, followed by a week-long research workshop in late August to help students develop and refine the focus of their research projects. </p>

<p>Student Fellowships carry a stipend of $3,000: $1,000 to be disbursed in two equal installments over the course of summer preceding the project year; and the remainder disbursed in equal bi-weekly payments following the academic year student payroll schedule. Please note that students who are appointed Kahn Fellows are not permitted to hold any other on-campus job during the course of the academic year.</p>

<p>--</p>

<p>This is the topic:</p>

<p>UNDERGROUNDS AND UNDERWORLDS
Organizing Fellows: Kevin Rozario (American Studies) and Michael Thurston (English)
In the Underworlds of mythology, ritual, and poetry, and in Undergrounds of subterranean space (sewers, subways, cellars) and oppositional or avant-garde movements, things occur that are interesting and important. Both Underworlds and Undergrounds have existed for thousands of years in religious mythologies, in literary narratives and folk tales, and in political cultures, as well as in the interpretation and use of subterranean spaces, both natural and built. The creation of Underworlds into which characters descend and the use of Undergrounds in which revolutions are hatched have held meaning across wide spans of geographical and cultural space, and in every historical period. Some might look to Odysseus invoking the shade of the prophet Tiresias from the Underworld at the inaugural moment of the European literary tradition, while others see groups devoted to subversive ideas finding refuge in the catacombs under Rome in the first century BC; while still others pursue Gilgamesh into an Underworld, or trace Mao Tse-tung to caves in the mountains of China, where he harbors his revolutionary forces; or follows the Underground Railroad leading slaves to freedom; or examines Bohemia as a distinctive kind of creative space; or investigates the effects "blogging" on mainstream politics and journalism. The substantive areas of research that might be pursued within this framework are almost unlimited, and the organizers hope to bring together scholars from the broadest range of fields to pose a wide array of questions about that which goes on under the surfaces, in undergrounds and underworlds. Why have such spaces exerted such power over our imaginations? What are the material and symbolic functions of underground spaces, in urban development, in economic organization, and in social relationships? How does the presence of an underground shape how we inhabit and experience space above ground, whether physical or conceptual? To what extent might such spaces liberate us from the rules and constraints of the dominant and normative order above ground? Indeed, how have undergrounds and underworlds, as places and as metaphors, formed, deformed, and transformed the world we inhabit? The organizers view this project as enabling the broadest possible intellectual engagement, and so as long as the eyes of scholars are focused downward, under the surface, toward undergrounds and underworlds, a rich variety of perspectives, methodologies, and areas of research interest are encouraged.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/about.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/about.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[curmudgeon]

<p>She's "stompin' on the terra" , mini. It's fun to watch her work. ;)</p>

[oldolddad]

<p>mini: That is cool. Neat program. Congrats to her. Lots of work but interesting. Maybe she will find the Phantom or better yet the eloi or is it the worlocks?</p>

[mini]

<p>I think they selected her as the resident musicologist - Orpheus and etc., but also the underground returns to terra firma (Commendatore in Don Giovanni, etc.) Also, her Italian skills make her rather adept around Dante and such. (She also knows much about the impacts of underground earthquakes, e.g. tsunamis, firsthand, though I don't think that was in her application. It was amazing, though, how, by chance, she took a geology course focused on natural disasters her very first term in school, and immediately got to put it to use.)</p>