<p>So would they use the financial aid info people send in, or how would they know if you’re full pay?</p>
<p>Dartmouth has a commitment to being need blind. We are one of very few schools that is need blind for international students. While anything is possible, President Kim has stated multiple times, on record, that we will stay need blind for international students and that specifically was an important part of our commitment.</p>
<p>It isn’t impossible but it would be a HUGE backtrack and at the very least Dartmouth would first become need aware for international student first before it would consider doing it on a more wide scale basis. I can also say that the community here would be hugely upset at any such action (even if it just were to apply to international applicants) and I would not discount student and faculty outrage.</p>
<p>What if it’s just positioned as that they accepted more development candidates this year? All of the need blind schools accept development cases.</p>
<p>And would you be more upset by this than prof layoffs, layoffs of local people who maintain the campus and class cuts? Harvard cut hot breakfasts and the people who made them!</p>
<p>These school have to make difficult choices now.</p>
<p>There is no chance Dartmouth will have any percentage of its class not need-blind. Brown did this in the past (“95%” need blind) and was flamed for it and is now 100% need blind. Dartmouth WOULD NEVER DO THIS. Lets put this silly idea to rest. </p>
<p>Dartmouth and the Ivies are, and will always be 100% need blind.</p>
<p>“Development” cases are not publicized because of the fact that they are considered unfair. I certainly don’t think adding development spots would be any fairer.</p>
<p>There is something inherently wrong with the idea that money should increase or decrease your chance for admissions. There are several good schools that do have need aware policies but I truly think that it is a concept that is highly valued among the student body and faculty. Furthermore, I think the college’s PR would be hurt a lot by such a move. It is becoming a growing standard among top notch schools and Dartmouth’s need blind international policy is often cited and makes it stand out. While we do have to make some tough decisions, I don’t think this is one of them. I honestly think the negative PR alone would cause more issues for Dartmouth than it would solve. Also, to be blunt, the reason why top colleges can afford to be need-blind and have great financial aid is not only because they have a lot of money but also because of the socioeconomic makeup of the people who come. While I would argue that Dartmouth strives for diversity, the application pool naturally has a lot of applicant who don’t need financial aid period. The marginal benefit to screening apps for those who can pay (especially if we limit it to only a small % of apps) is relatively small.</p>
<p>(and the whole Harvard hot breakfast move was kind of silly. It produces press and makes everyone feel Harvard is poor but in reality doesn’t do much to help the budget shortfall)</p>
<p>I don’t think you’re getting this–Harvard has a very, very serious cash problem and had to do something. They have ceased building an entire new campus ****ing off a whole town and causing it major problems. They had no choice.</p>
<p>What would you like Dartmouth to cut? So far the cuts don’t seem too bad to the students I’ve spoken too–a closed dining hall, the hop dining will be closed this summer too, some building projects put off…but more are needed. What would you like them to cut or where would you like the College to find more money? That community is very dependent on the college for employment.</p>
<p>Of course the students will be upset at more development classmates if it’s publicized, but if the debate was had openly and they had to weigh it against cuts really impacting them personally, I’m not so sure they wouldn’t vote for it. Who cares, 75 more sons and daughters of the rich and famous–these kids often bring a lot to campus.</p>
<p>Students rioted at Harvard over necessary changes. Dartmouth tends to be less activist, but some of the necessary moves have got to **** some off.</p>
<p>Frankly, I would not be upset in the least if D accepted additional development cases. That would not deny an <em>existing</em> place to anyone…and we all know that ALL schools accept development cases now.</p>
<p>It may seem silly, but I know that one thing they could do to save substantial amounts of money is turn down the thermostats in some buildings. My son’s dorm is set to 73, and can’t be turned down. The kids are wearing shorts and t shirts in January. His radiator obviously has a broken control: his room is stiflingly hot, undoubtedly in the 80s. He actually has to keep the window open. In January.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much the college spends on heating every year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in the seven figures, judging from what I know about the cost of heating old institutional buildings in New England. I would venture to guess that some conservation measures could save hundreds of thousands of dollars or more without making anyone uncomfortable. In fact, they might be MORE comfortable.</p>
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<p>I admire your idealism, but there is nothing silly about money and keeping the school solvent. “Need-blind” schools are as need-blind as they can afford to be. They’ll try hard to remain need-blind, but if the financial situation gets bleak enough they are not going to let the academic reputation of the school go down the toilet for the sake of need-blind.</p>
<p>And short of that there are many ways schools can ensure that they admitting a lot of new full-pay students without specifically violating their need-blind policies. For example they can decide, in the name of “geographic diversity”, to admit a bunch more students from high-income zip codes. And lo and behold, not many of those new students qualified for or even bothered to apply for financial aid. What a coincidence!</p>
<p>I don’t get the feeling we’re talking to Econ majors here. Even as a financial professional, I had no idea how bad the cash situation was at these schools until Vanity Fair did the story about Harvard. Dartmouth was not as deeply impacted by their private equity investments as Harvard is but all of the big endowment schools are significantly impacted. </p>
<p>My own Dartmouth student has not registered worry while his Harvard cousin has been rioting. I’m sorry for these kids, hitting these schools at this point in time and hoping cuts can be achieved wisely.</p>
<p>Consolation, I think it’s a Catch 22 with the dorm heating issue–they were going to renovate all of them and make them as Green as McLaughlin which is now on hold.</p>
<p>If 75-100 kids paying full and their happy parents dropping a few million can be added, it’s a no brainer to me. Keep all the profs, keep the locals employed, let Kim run with his international visions.</p>
<p>In all honesty the cuts are going to come from employment which is the highest expenditure for any university. Harvard did have to make significant cuts but a lot of the high media stories, such as cutting the hot breakfasts simply did not do much to affect the budget picture. Even adding 100 slots of students paying full tuition wouldn’t come close to solving the budget crisis. (100* 50,000=5,000,000 or 10,000,000 since Dartmouth is looking at a 2 year goal and that is assuming little to no marginal cost of educating, dorming, ect of 100 more students) It would certainly be welcomed money but it would require quite the change in policy and still require us to do layoffs.</p>
<p>Here is a new article about a forum Dartmouth just held on the budget: [TheDartmouth.com</a> | Kim announces Thayer renovation plan during budget forum](<a href=“http://thedartmouth.com/2010/01/15/news/forum/]TheDartmouth.com”>http://thedartmouth.com/2010/01/15/news/forum/)</p>
<p>“We will definitely maintain need-blind admissions,” Kim said. “That’s something we will never break away from.”</p>
<p>(Of course it doesn’t necessarily say anything about development cases but again he has been consistent on the issue of need blind admissions)</p>
<p>^Yeah, but in the sentence just before that he says:</p>
<p>“There have been no decisions made about financial aid, according to Kim.”</p>
<p>Being theoretically need-blind doesn’t mean a whole lot if you have to cut financial aid and poor kids can no longer afford to attend. I don’t think the “decision” they are still mulling over is to <em>increase</em> financial aid.</p>
<p>Development candidates were indeed addressed:</p>
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[quote]
In their search for savings in the College budget, Dartmouth administrators may soon add the College’s “no-loan” financial aid program to the list of potential cuts.
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Kim also told the Valley News that layoffs will occur in February, though he offered no definitive idea of their scale. More information about College budget plans will be provided at Kim’s budget forum on Friday at 12:30 pm.</p>
<p>Update, 6:35 pm: In an interview with The Dartmouth today, College President Kim said that the administration had been asked by the Board of Trustees to review the College’s financial aid policy as part of its comprehensive budget analysis. Administrators have made no firm decisions yet about potential changes, but Kim said that students whose families make less than $75,000 will not, in fact, see a change in their financial aid. The College may, however, reinstate loans for students of higher-income families, he said."</p>
<p>[TheDartmouth.com</a> | Administrators eye “no-loan” financial aid](<a href=“The Dartmouth | America's Oldest College Newspaper”>The Dartmouth | America's Oldest College Newspaper)</p>
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<p>Sure, but you can save only modestly by cutting janitors and food service workers. Those positions are not highly-paid in the first place. If they have to start abolishing academic programs and departments and/or laying-off a serious number of professors, that’s when the academic strength of the school starts to go down quickly. And when the star professors begin to feel unwelcome or they get disgusted with what they see happening to their colleagues and head for the exits, that’s when the quality of Dartmouth really begins to tank.</p>
<p>So they may trim a few assistant profs, but I don’t think they are going to make faculty cuts big enough to result in really big savings. IMO they’ll drop need-blind, either openly or secretly, long before they go very far in that direction.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think Dartmouth already picked up many development/strong full pay candidates with the 60 extra they took ED this year. Why else would they suddenly up the ED number? Many colleges are now using ED as a way to get more committed full pays.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear the students posting on this thread weigh in on where they would vote if it’s a matter of becoming less need blind or adding back loans (which it’s clear to me they are going to do to some extent) and cutting academic programs.</p>
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<p>Of course, there is always the WL, where its easier to pick and choose more full pay students. </p>
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<p>Methinks you are correct. But, even if they weren’t officially “developmental” admits, it would have been easy to accept one more kid each from the top, national prep schools (Andover, Exeter and the like), or public magnets (TJ), nearly all of which are full pay and tend to have high test scores.</p>
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<p>Don’t forget about need-blind to internationals, who tend to require a lot more funding on a per student basis.</p>
<p>It has already been signaled that some professors will be cut and early retirement plans have been offered for eligible staff. I highly doubt we will become need aware especially if our peers particularly in the Ivy League remain so even in the mist of budget cut. Even Cornell which made some huge cuts recently hasn’t touched the issue. I certainly don’t think even just from a PR point of view that we would be willing to be the first ones to change to a need-aware policy… particularly when we have stated repeatedly we wouldn’t. It is also not a vote between need-aware or cutting programs. Unless the college were to go need-aware for a large part of the class, it wouldn’t really solve the budget problems. It might add some revenue but it really isn’t a cure all especially when the pool of applicants is already composed, disproportionally to the general population, of people coming from a relatively high socio-economic backgrounds.</p>
<p>Sorry Mason, you’re naive. But you are correct in that Dartmouth won’t do anything it’s peer schools are not doing.</p>
<p>Harvard is struggling with what they refer to as the Summers debacle, the financial aid initiative he pushed through there. Yale, Princeton and Stanford are probably cursing Summers too. They will all find ways until their cash situations recover to remain need blind, wink wink, yet still find more cash from wealthy students.</p>
<p>Changing to a stricter financial aid policy (regardless of if it is right) would save more money than just becoming need aware. A need aware policy would net revenue but with 50% of student receiving an average aid package of $30,000 Dartmouth would have to go need aware for 100 students (a little under 10% of the class and making the assumption just for the sake of ease everyone admitted comes) to make 1.5 million dollars extra per year or 6 million over the course of the students’ 4 years of attendance. </p>
<p>6 million isn’t chump change but it is no where near the 100 million dollar deficit that needs to be filled and would require us to go need-aware for a good percentage of the class. Other cuts would still definitely have to be made.</p>