<p>Has any Georgetown student ever notice the effect of Georgetown's relatively small endowment on in their personal/social/academic life? Does it pose any pressing problems to the students, facilities, or overall academic experience? I've been reading about it some, and I was just wondering. Thanks! :)</p>
<p>An article in the Los Angeles Times mentioned college endowments. An organization of students are pressing for sunshine laws in terms of how endowments are spent.</p>
<p>It doesn't answer your question at all, but I thought it would be an interesting point to make.</p>
<p>What are sunshine laws?</p>
<p>The term "sunshine laws" is a general term referring to laws that allow the public to see what an organization, government agency, or company does.</p>
<p>For example, there are sunshine laws on Political Action Committees (PAC). PACs must report how much they donate to each candidate. Political candidates must also report how much money they receive; again, a product of sunshine laws.</p>
<p>In this case, these students are pressing that laws be passed to force universities to disclose how the endowments are being spent, allowing the "sun" to "shine" upon the actions of the university.</p>
<p>I thought of another example:</p>
<p>Herbert Hoover presented to Congress a bill that would disclose when banks petitioned for aid (to deal with the bank crisis). This is an example of a sunshine law. As history would prove, this idea backfired because the public pulled their money out when they found out about the banks petitioning for aid, worsening the bank crisis.</p>
<p>Ohhhh.. okay, thanks. That makes sense.</p>
<p>It really confuses me why Georgetwon has a low endowment, anyway.</p>
<p>Well, how much is their endowment? And what qualifies as a "small" endowment?</p>
<p>Georgetown's endowment (I believe) hovers around the 850 million mark. </p>
<p>In comparison, Emory has 3.8 billion, Stanford and Princeton both have about 8.5 billion, Yale has 11 billion, and Harvard has about 19.3 billion. Even the University of *Rochester<a href="no%20offense%20to%20anyone">/i</a> has 1.1 billion.</p>
<p>In such company, I do believe that Georgetown's endowment qualifies as "small."</p>
<p>Interesting point; the reason could be that Georgetown makes up for its small endowment with other financial sources.</p>
<p>Georgetown does face problems do to its meager endowment. Have any of you ever checked out Georgetown's financial aid information? Their average grant portion of a financial aid package is only around $15-16K...pretty weak! I've heard gripes about other cuts that they've made, but I'm not aware of too many specifics. An endowment of $850million for a university of Georgetown's size and prestige is miniscule, especially when compared to those of schools like Rice and Williams, which are significantly smaller and significantly richer per capita. As a point of comparison, Phillips Academy Andover has an endowment of $570millions...for just over 1,000 students...and it's a high school! Plus, being the ritzy place that it is, Andover probably has fewer financial aidees, thus further lowering potential expenditures putting more endowment funds into the education of its students. Just my two cents: Georgetown needs to raise some major cash (~$2billion) if it wants to continue to compete as an academically elite institution. The deleterious effect of such limited resources surely has a negative effect on "diversity" and getting top students; students accepted from solid middle class backgrounds who get into Georgetown will also gain acceptances from other top schools, and, with those acceptances, superior financial aid packages. I am one of those middle class kids, and I applied to Georgetown because I love the school and with the hope that I may get lucky with financial aid (if accepted). So, let's say I am accapted, but cannot go due to financial aid. I am then a "casualty" of the weak financial aid situation, and, implicitly, the small endowment. Georgetown would then lose out on a student they wanted and the small bit of socioeconomic diversity that I would bring. A school full of top-income kids who can pay the high asking price is one that would, in my opinion, slowly decay. No elite school can make it difficult for 95% of the population to attend.</p>
<p>That was a very insightful post.</p>
<p>Could the average financial aid packages be smaller because they award some students less because their EFC is higher?</p>
<p>Well that relates back to his point really. If their EFC is higher because they're richer, that only means that poorer students are already discouraged from applying because of gtown's rep of having bad finaid. Vicious cycle?</p>
<p>Vicious cycle indeed. Eiffelguy, their average financial aid package given is around the size of those given by peer institutions. However, rather than having 90+% of that average package composed of grant money, only around 50-60% is. It may not seem like a huge amount, but for some people $10,000 is a lot of money. And, for many people, it is not worth it to incur $75,000 in debt in order to go to Georgetown when they could go to XYZ top 25 university and graduate with <$20k in debt.</p>
<p>Graduating with $75,000 dollars is definitely not worth it.</p>
<p>However you neglected work study. That can at least take a few thousand dollars. And not all loans are horrible. A subsidized Stafford Loan is good and government loans are generally low interest rate.</p>
<p>Not to mention that if less students receive financial aid, then those who do get financial aid would get more in institutional grants and scholarship.</p>
<p>Vicious cycle, but those who view college as possible, benefit as cruel as it may sound.</p>
<p>We just have to wait till mid-March for financial awards letters.</p>
<p>Cavalier302, where are you getting your statistics so that I may check myself? I want to gather info.</p>
<p>Eiffelguy, I've been finding these financial aid numbers on usnews.com. I'm not really sure what you mean to say about work study. Of course work study is available, but it is also available in similar or greater quantities at peer institutions with larger average grants. Okay, now here are some financial aid data that might interest you, and I'll let the numbers speak for themselves:</p>
<p>Georgetown tuition+room&board= $40,492
Average financial aid package= $22,344
Average need-based grant= $15,663
Average need-based loan= $3,859
Average cost after grants= $24,829
The average amount earned from work study is not included, but I believe we can extrapolate that that amount totals around $2800. Now, let's compare Georgetown's numbers to Princeton's:</p>
<p>Tuition+room&board= $38,307
Average financial aid package= $25,460
Average need-based grant= $23,660
Average loan= $0
Average cost after grant= $14,647
Again, it can probably be extrapolated that the average amount earned through work study is around $1800.</p>
<p>Work study is a federal program and is usually included in financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Those figures are interesting; Princeton doesn't give its students loans (which is pleasantly surprising).</p>
<p>Oh you didn't know that? That's what's so special (and great) about Princeton. They will never make you take out loans (you can do it on your own of course). That's why the nassoons sing "princeton is free..." lol</p>
<p>Well, if G-town's endowment is so small, I just KNOW I will hate it there. I'm off to the Notre Dame board!</p>
<p>Well, I'm not going to write Georgetown off yet.</p>
<p>cavalier302, thank you for the web address; I checked it out and found a comparison chart too, which will help.</p>
<p>I certainly hope that Georgetown will be affordable for me. If not, there's always graduate school.</p>