<p>It is interesting to see the number of issues raised in this article. Inasmuch as many of those issues represent true problems in education in the United States, I do not really see how we can deposit them on the front steps of Harvard and Yale and expect the venerable schools to correct them … just because they have invested the generous donations of their alumni wisely. </p>
<p>In fact, what are Harvard and Yale supposed to do? When they try increasing the number of low SES students (and making it very affordable) they get massive complaints from the middle-class. When they announce a program to help families in higher SES, they get slammed for failing to increase the number of students who receive Federal support such as the Pell or SEOG grants. </p>
<p>One of the realities of any debate on the affordibility of colleges is that our perceptions are distorted by our addiction to free public education. Since 90% of the population does not get a direct bill for K-12 education, it is easy to understand why the perspective is skewed.</p>
<p>While we can expect a school such as Harvard to show leadership, it takes a giant leap to indict them in the way this article did. We know that Yale was a follower in the recent initiatives. What can we expect from Columbia?</p>
<p>Among the authors concerns: The policies are good news for students at Harvard and Yale, but “bad news for many hoping to attend other private four
colleges-and for the nation in general.”</p>
<p>“In 2004, Lawrence Summers, then Harvard’s president, pointed out that three-fourths of the students at selective colleges come from the top income quartile and only 9 percent from the bottom two quartiles combined.”</p>
<p>"The scandalous fact is that between 2004 and 2006 — an era of enormous private wealth accumulation — 27 of the 30 top-ranked American universities and 26 of the top 30 liberal arts colleges saw a decline in the percentage of low-income (Pell-grant-eligible) students. The problem Mr. Summers described is only growing worse. While some upper-middle-class families have to sacrifice in order to pay for college and may deserve more financial help, most of their children find a way to attend college. "</p>
<p>I wonder if the decline in low income students is due to ever-tightening selectivity at these schools as opposed to a decline in their affordability for lower income families. It seems that the majority of the top colleges are need-blind and meet 100% of need, which for true low-income families should result in an EFC of zero.</p>
<p>As with many things in this country, the middle class finds itself feeling the pain. An EFC of $25K per year, with part of the need being met by loans, is not a good deal compared to the free ride the student might get at a flagship state school.</p>
<p>While many folks here believe a Ivy or similar education is worth an extra $100K - $200K, lots of families consider that serious money and will choose a very good alternative if it is many tens of thousands cheaper. If an elite but expensive college doesn’t want to admit those students only to lose them after the family runs the numbers, they have to find a way to cut the EFC and eliminate (or at least reduce) loans.</p>
<p>It’s a smart move by the schools that can afford it. Some of their competitors will decline to match the deal, or simply won’t be able to. The schools that can will get more apps, and will see a higher yield rate.</p>
<p>One would hope that schools wouldn’t actually reallocate need-based aid away from needier students. That would indeed be hard to justify.</p>
<p>“I wonder if the decline in low income students is due to ever-tightening selectivity at these schools as opposed to a decline in their affordability for lower income families.”</p>
<p>Reasonable hypothesis, studied by Gordon Winston and Catharine Hill, now Pres. of Vassar (as to whether equivalent low-income students were available), and found to be false.</p>
<p>Dartmouth President James Wright announced today that Dartmouth will eliminate tuition for undergraduates from families with incomes below $75,000; replace loans with scholarships; extend need-blind admissions to international students; and create a leave term without earnings
Details of the Initiative</p>
<p>No Tuition for Families Who Earn less than $75,000
Beginning with the 2008-09 academic year, all students from families with incomes of $75,000 or less will receive free tuition. In addition, many will also receive scholarships for associated costs of attendance, i.e. room, board, books and miscellaneous expenses.</p>
<p>Loans Replaced with Scholarships
The College will eliminate loans for incoming scholarship recipients beginning with next year’s Class of 2012. Over the course of four years of enrollment, students will see loans that totaled as much as $17,500 replaced with scholarships. Currently enrolled students will see their loan expectation cut by 50 percent beginning next fall for each of their remaining years at the College. The elimination of loans will significantly reduce the debt burden of Dartmouth graduates.</p>
<p>Need-blind admissions for International Students
Starting immediately with the Class of 2012, the College will extend its need-blind admissions policy to all international students. Previously the College was need-blind for students from the U.S. as well as those from Canada and Mexico and provided financial aid to other international students up to a preset budget maximum. This cap will now be lifted and Dartmouth will join a very small group of schools that have a fully need-blind admissions process for international students. </p>
<p>Leave Term Earnings Expectation
Starting immediately, Dartmouth will provide an additional scholarship of $2,950 to allow financial aid recipients to take advantage of research or internship opportunities in their junior year. Currently, these students are expected to contribute earnings from their summer employment towards the cost of their education and thus have less flexibility than non-financial aid students in participating in important components of the Dartmouth experience. Students will be able to participate in community service, other forms of volunteer activities, or spend the time on their own research or studying for graduate school entrance exams. This aspect of the new plan builds on Dartmouth’s year-round calendar and strong tradition of service and experiential learning opportunities.</p>
<p>It is easy to applaud most of the new plan. This said, the decision to lift the cap for need-blind admissions for International Students could be viewed as highly questionable and misdirected.</p>
<p>The fact that Dartmouth will join a very small group of schools that have a fully need-blind admissions process for international students is not one I consider positive. And I doubt that Eleazar Wheelock would see it as continuation of his objectives of educating Native Americans.</p>
<p>That article is bs. Clearly creating more aid for middle class families whom 40k per year is still a big burden does not in the slightest hurt poorer applicants’ aid. Sure other schools cannot necessarily compete with this, so they will just stay the way they are, only helping the poor. Also, pretty much all of their statistics are off, when they say that 200,000 is in the top whatever percent. This is because financial aid people count things like the value of your home like home equity. Meaning that they expect you to be getting some sort of money from your home by means of a loan. So, you cannot compare 200 grand per year to those other statistics, because finaid is calculated a different way than purely income! Plus, 200 grand is not as much as it seems. 200 grand of income after taxes is 100 grand. And then, 40 grand goes to colleges… what if they have more than one child in school?</p>
<p>“the decision to lift the cap for need-blind admissions for International Students could be viewed as highly questionable and misdirected.”
I totally agree!</p>
<p>I still think it is shortsighted to assume that less poor students means bad financial aid. ever stop to think why poor people are poor? maybe, as a whole, poor people have lower average intelligence, and thus can’t get into harvard for merit reasons? **as a whole! I’m not saying all poor people are dumb.</p>
<p>JohnC613, Harvard is admitting 18 year olds. They can’t control if they’re poor. Maybe some parents are poor due to making bad decisions, but 18 year olds generally can’t make enough money to move their family from one socio-economic “class” to another, so you can’t “blame” the 18 year old for their economic condition. Maybe some parents are “dumb” but the parents aren’t the ones applying to Harvard; the kids are. Also you’re forgetting the many intelligent people who choose lower paying jobs because they’re interested in more than making money - they are social workers, etc, because they want to help people.</p>
<p>(Edit - to clarify, I’m not agreeing with John’s point, I’m trying to point out the failure in logic in his position.)</p>
<p>40k/year is likely a burden on any family that makes under 300k/year (with multiple kids). Colleges as a whole should cap tuition at something much less than 40k</p>
<p>While “money smarts” does tend to exist within the wealthy classes, how can you deny the fact that richer students have more resources to help them succeed education-wise and help them get into these top schools?</p>
<p>Could this possibly be because smarter parents generally make more money and therefore most of the smarter kids (due to the fact that intellect is highly hereditary) are from the upper brackets. Hmmm, this sounds…true.</p>
<p>^I agree with wharton. The overall lower competence of ‘poor’ people is more because of lack of stimulating environment and education, while richer people have all (or at least, much more) the resources they need to succeed.</p>
<p>What baloney. The schools that are wealthy enough to provide sweeping financial aid reform for upper-middle-class families (HYPSMC etc) lose so few cross-admits to less wealthy colleges already that the less wealthy colleges will probably not feel much of a difference in enrollment at all. If there is any impact at all, it will only be felt by PSMC and the few other, very top schools that currently are competitive in cross-admit battles. </p>
<p>What possible reasoning could there be to suppose that, suddenly, every other university in the country is going to snatch aid money from the poor and distribute it to the relatively wealthy because of HY’s aid changes?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? I think that’s exactly what they’re doing.</p>
<p>Cynics have pointed out that it is easy for a place like Harvard to have generous aid for those who qualify, when such a small percentage of the students come from low income families.</p>
<p>The problem does not appear to be an insufficient number of students with the academic qualifications. Some have speculated that the admission criteria favor those who, for example, do not have to spend large amounts of their time working after school, and can focus on sports or extracurriculars. The sorts of jobs high school students can get rarely compete, in the eyes of admissions committees, with being a potential starter on an intercollegiate team, or first violin in the local orchestra.</p>
<p>this price competition and differing pricing structures already exists. Even among schools that meet all need, some are loan heavy (like Chicago) and some are loan free, like Princeton. Guess who wins in cross admits? </p>
<p>As Roger pointed out, I don’t see these recent changes at Yale and Harvard changing the relative attractiveness all that much. The top wealthy four will not change. Williams and Grinnell, the wealthiest of the LACs, will still be what they are.</p>
<p>What will change is far more middle and upper middle income families buying a Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford lottery ticket, assuming Princeton and Stanford match the competition, which they can afford to do. </p>
<p>BTW, I thought the real zinger in the editorial was not the author’s concerns that the less wealthy would try to match the leaders. Rather, it was directed to the feds:
<p>It seems to me that there is a break point at which people earning less money may be matching those earning more (as crazy as that sounds). I don’t have the time or energy to sit down and try to figure it out (need to look at tax codes and various programs), but it may be that a household earning $80,000 gross is essentially equal to one earning the $180,000. The higher earner is subject to all sorts of tax phaseouts, and the infamous AMT (which has benefitted from inflation and the gov does not want to fix it because it will lose revenues), which means they get nothing benefitwise that the lower income person in this example would get. Education credits is another thing that gets phased out. There are others. For example, if the upper income here buys a Prius, they will not get the $3,500 tax break but the lower will (makes you question the seriousness of the gov policy to deal with global warming). If this logic is accurate – someone would have to crunch a lot of numbers, then there comes a point were earning more does not get you more, you simply have to pay what others are gettinig as an incentive. Kind of cuts into the American ideal work harder get more rewards. It is work harder and get the same “real” income you did earning less. The only way around it is to earn way more, say $400,000 so it does not matter. The term middle in the description suggests these are not the rich people. And that is in fact a problem that the tax code has not adjusted for inflation over years. I think I saw a definition of rich “according to the gov” as $75,000. A lot of college kids from good schools are at that level fairly quickly after graduation and some before depending on career field, and will they will tell you they are not rich. They have often have a very middle class existence interms of monetary sorts of measures.</p>
<p>I know some people are lower to middle middle class, whose kids are on scholarship to a top 30 private high school, their sports training is taken care of on scholarship, and when they get into HYPSCC etc. they will go on a needs based scholarship, not to include the assorted tax breaks they get with no phaseouts. Hence, they are in a “real income” with regard to their kids educations, they as well off as those whose are making quite a bit more and paying the bills, and possibly better off.</p>
<p>It is perhaps this situation what colleges like H & Y have figured out needs to be addressed as they have looked at everyones tax statements for some time now. </p>
<p>As I said, I have not sat down and actually calculated the numbers for specific incomes and the tax codes plus assorted benefits, but a number of people I have talked to have done partial comparisons and are coming to similar conclusions.</p>