<p>Lots of national press today about Harvard revamping financial aid to defray the ever-higher cost of college for middle class and upper-middle class families. Families with income between 120k-180k will be expected to pay 10% of income, with no loans and home equity not to be counted as an asset. I was surprised to see Harvard's COA is actually a little less than ND. Does anyone think ND could institute similar changes? Many people have commented on how families in the middle of the income spectrum (avoiding for the moment the debate on who is really middle class and who is not) are feeling the squeeze when it comes to higher college costs.</p>
<p>ND is probably one of the few schools that has the money and endowment to actually do something like this. I wouldn't expect it, though. Although they do have money, they still pale in comparison to Harvard.</p>
<p>I hope so.</p>
<p>It's doubtful. </p>
<p>Notre Dame likes to throw all its funds around at all kinds of projects that have no real bearing on the education of students. I am constantly hearing about outreach programs and institutes and development projects and blah blah blah. OK - sounds nice. I GET that it's part of our Catholic character to help others. But the primary function of a Catholic University should be to teach students. That requires paying the best teachers and acquiring the best resources. It doesn't require paying the campus laborers $45 an hour because we are so ridden with white-guilt. </p>
<p>On top of that, there is this ridiculous bureaucratic layer of student-run activities that sucks away funds and funnels them into activities that .05% of people benefit from. </p>
<p>In other words, the price is expensive. But a Notre Dame education is priceless. It should just cost less. Take that paradox and go with it.</p>
<p>Notre Dame meets 100% of financial need. I have three in College and they offered the best financial aid.</p>
<p>Without doing any actual math I'm going to say that Harvard's endowment per student is between 4 and 5 times that of ND, which gives them more freedom with financial aid. That being said, ND does have too much institutional waste, too much bureaucracy, its my belief which has been seconded by professor's that too many people do nothing but act as middle men (and women). Not to mention the savings that we don't get because of frivolous energy waste, which at least is being addressed by student groups. Law professor Charles Rice has called for an update to ND's financial aid policy wherein no student can take more than 4000 dollars in loans and everything else is grant money from one source or another. But this hasn't been looked at seriously to my knowledge. It would probably bear out as a decent investment since there is a well known correlation between less debt at graduation and higher giving rates among alumni. It would be nice to see ND do something like that.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that no one should pay to go to Harvard, the return on their endowment exceeds their annual operating budget. They don't even need tuition, grants, and contributions to run the place.</p>
<p>In response to Irish-hopeful, I would like to say that students and faculty at Notre Dame have had to battle long and hard to convince the administration to pay their workers a living wage. It is not "white-guilt" that motivates the fair pay of employees, it is the fundamental tenets of Catholic social teaching. I'm sure you can find much literature supporting this on campus. Blame not student activists for a waste of money, cast stones not at the campus administrators for smearing the name of ND.
The biggest waste of money is not created by some fringe group. In fact, the vast majority of students and the public supports a vast mis-allocation of resources. The bloated athletic program - including the three or four football coaches on Notre Dame's payroll - sucks millions away from what I'm sure you would consider "worthy" activities.
I agree that Notre Dame could create a better educational climate. It would be nice if students were not required to wear "Gay? Fine by me" tee-shirts to draw some attention to the attack on basic human rights on the nations most homophobic campus. Surely you will agree that Notre Dame students would learn better if they did not skip class, or were so exhausted that they fall asleep in class, because of parties permeated with alcohol. Some teachers during the fall semester initially avoid collecting homework on Mondays or Fridays because of student's propensity to cut class.
In short, Notre Dame should be doing more, not less, to further its mission to enhance Catholic Social Teaching. This would include a more generous financial aid policy which could add more - some! - diversity to campus. This more benevolent policy should not come at the expense of campus employees.</p>
<p>tbonedex--are you a current student at Notre Dame? You seem to know an awful lot about the goings-on of the campus.</p>
<p>I would question the meaning of "fair pay." In a capitalist society, fair pay means you pay the highest for the most valuable (i.e. rarest and most difficult to find qualified people for) positions. Paying someone a lot of money for menial labor borders on socialism. Those positions belong to the lowest bidder. However, I definitely agree with what you are saying about the football coaches. I do not agree that we are the most homophobic campus in the nation (Bob Jones anyone? We don't tear down others here). Also, people don't skip class as often as you think. When people do skip class, alcohol is very rarely a factor.</p>
<p>I misremembered a ranking, my apologies. According to Princeton Review (for whatever that's worth) ND is the 4th most homophobic campus in the US.
Here's a link about Catholic Social Teaching: Major</a> Themes [Edit: this was a link found on a ND website that indicated that such teachings needed to be promoted more}
The principles there would contradict your argument against paying "a lot of money" (is it really a lot? how much is a living wage?) in a capatilist society. It's pretty widely agreed that, for instance, a minimum wage is an acceptable check on pure market forces. Giving positions simply to the lowest bidder would probably cause a huge decrease in living standards, as long as there was no labor shortage. The alcholol thing is a rumor I've heard repeated credibly many times.
I meant my post to be a rebuttal to the idea that ND is wasting money on paying its workers a living wage and funding student groups. I'm a high school senior who is strongly considering ND. I think it is a great university.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Paying someone a lot of money for menial labor borders on socialism.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wouldn't you say that core Catholic teaching, particularly Catholic social teaching, would advocate economic policies quite akin to socialism? While it still advocates individuality, it is certainly more slanted towards equality.</p>
<p>Do you also think that perhaps the funding of the football program comes primarily from TV, boosters, etc.? I cannot believe that a good portion of the tuition I pay goes directly into the football program. At least I hope it doesn't! We are paying for son to obtain an education, not to attend a school with a great football program. And, while I don't know the specifics about what workers may or may not be paid at ND, I do know that at several LACs we visited with son, the living wage issue was quite the issue. Makes one wonder--</p>
<p>The football program is absolutely self-sustaining. In fact, ND's football team gives up one of the higher percentages of its income to the school itself. And a lot of the NBC money goes towards financial aid, or so I hear. It just seems like a lot of the school's focus is on the periphery of its main function: giving students the best Catholic education money can buy.</p>
<p>[We don't need to do the capitalism - socialism debate, my point in bringing that up is to illustrate that the school is not dedicated to being affordable. It just isn't. I know all about CST because I did a summer service project based on a lot of PLXIII's Rerum Novarum, but I am not convinced that arbitrary "fairness" scales are the way to egalitarian outcomes. I mean, if it's fair to give them $20 / hour, isn't it more fair to give them $75 / hour. "But that's unreasonable," you say. And I say, why not let reason be dictated by the most reasonable system out there: capitalism.]</p>
<p>Tbonedex - about a few other things you've said. I couldn't agree more about the occasional watering down of class. I wish it were sometimes significantly more challenging. Alcohol can be the de facto campus soma, it seems, yes. And I don't really think the school is homophobic...I just think alot of people tend to think the Church's teaching on homosexuality is inherently homophobic. But if we are going with Church teaching on Social Justice issues I guess their teaching on sexuality flies too right?</p>
<p>1) The football program alone returns $21 million to the school for academic purposes. The</a> Most Valuable College Football Teams - University of Notre Dame : News & Information</p>
<p>2) Not officially recognizing a gay student group, even though the University still provides space for the Core Counsel for Gay and Lesbian Students, doesn't make us the 4th most homophobic campus in the country. Cal? No, but any given Protestant school makes us look uber-tolerant.</p>
<p>3) Only two Catholic universities have official policies on campus living wage: Georgetown and St. Thomas. I commed those schools, and believe that there have been significant pushes from students, faculty and staff to change Notre Dame's approach.</p>
<p>4) As for the crazy partying mentality, you obviously haven't been to the campus of any large state school.</p>
<p>5) As for advancing Catholic Social Teaching, the fact that hundreds of students give up their fall, winter or spring breaks to do service projects through University programs, the fact that the University has committed several million dollars to sponser a Millenium Village in Uganda, the fact that 10% of each graduating class commit to a year or more of service, the fact that Notre Dame professor Tom Streit has helped eliminate lymphatic filariasis in Haiti, the fact that Notre Dame basically keeps the doors open for three poor urban grade schools in South Bend, Chicago and Washington DC, the fact that I don't even know everything that goes on, still isn't enough in my opinion. But don't confuse the top-down lust for better rankings with the Catholic mission of the school, which often permeates the rest of the campus. The Catholic mission is greater than any few administrators that occasionally act like fools.</p>
<p>Back to the original question, will ND look at its fin aid program as Harvard has done? I think ND will CAREFULLY consider the option. I do not think that they will automatically dismiss it.</p>
<p>As somebody pointed out already, Harvard's endowment throws off more than enough money to pay tuition and fees for every student. I doubt ND's can do that as the per student amount is not as high.</p>
<p>I doubt very much ND will follow Harvard's lead--the sense I had from the financial aid presentations is that they are more than generous with students who come from families that are truly below average in terms of household income, but expect the families of the upper middle class to sacrifice in a meaningful way if they want their kids to attend ND. </p>
<p>Now, if you have 10 kids all in Catholic school vs. 2 or 3 kids but household income is the same, they will be more generous with the family with more obligations, but I can't ever see them giving free rides to affluent students.</p>
<p>I stand corrected. Somehow, I managed to severely underestimate the amount of money ticket sales, etc. brings in to the university.
Again, my post was meant to support living wages.
Also again, I really do like ND.</p>
<p>Personally I wish ND would seriously consider Harvard's precedent. When filling out financial aid applications there isn't room for flexibility. For example although on paper you only see my brother and I attending college next year, my parents are also paying for my sister's wedding. I understand that upper middle class kids shouldn't get a 'full ride' but at the same time every household has money problems.</p>
<p>Many ostensibly upper middle class families have financial pressures -- medical expenses, caring for elderly family members, etc. Wedding expenses, however, don't fall into that category. They are completely discretionary.<br>
Or maybe you were kidding...</p>
<p>No I completely understand wedding expenses are discretionary, but they are still a financial pressure. Do you realize how expensive a small wedding is? I was just using that as an example of some of the things not taken into account by financial aid, there are many factors which vary between families. Although you might not think that a wedding, for example, is a financial pressure other people would disagree. I know for the CSS profile you can list how many dependents are in a household which could include elderly family members. Medical expenses are another thing not taken into account which should be. If you'll look at my last sentence, "...every household has money problems." Isn't the point of financial aid to make college affordable for everyone based on their financial situation?
My entire point is to say families might be upper middle class on paper, I know mine is, while having unique expenses that are not taken into account. If financial aid profiles had a way to express those unique expenses then I believe more people would receive the money they need.</p>