https://www.nepr.net/post/facing-rising-costs-holy-cross-moves-away-need-blind-admissions#stream/0
Perhaps this is a call to alumni to step up their giving.
Iâm glad for the transparency. I donât think it will impact admissions much. That it will meet full need for those accepted is really what matters more
This is very sad but college sure canât spend money it doesnât have. If HC kept heavy spending on aid, theyâll have to cut on standards and raise cost of attendance for paying families who are already struggling to pay outrageously high bills. This can eventually lead a college to bankruptcy.
Not great news, but a prudent financial move for now. My bet is theyâll wind up back on full need-blind in a few years.
@Riversider bankruptcy? HC has an endowment of over 750 million dollars for 3000 students! What they could have done is shift money away from their large D1 athletic scholarship pool if their huge endowment and high tuition doesnât cover what they need to set the policy. They are too small of a school to be D1.
Here is another article about the decision:
https://hcspire.com/2019/04/10/the-college-quietly-abandons-prestigious-need-blind-admissions-policy/
@suzyQ7 Last I looked Holy Cross had an endowment shy of 800 million. Still substantial but they have a bit of work ahead to join the billion dollar club.
@hudsonvalley51 Google for some reason spit out a billion (odd), but I corrected my number above based on what HC reported on their site.
Itâs a very high endowment for the number of students.
I think the core issue is that full pay tuition is so high that these families and students are choosing to full pay the 70k at higher ranked schools in better locations. Especially with the use of ED.
Outrageous full pay COA are what pushing high achieving upper middle class students away from these schools. Of course they can fill up their classes with wealthy and poor but they are missing out on one demographic group.
I for one am glad someone is awake in the Finance office.
Thanks @suzyQ7
Iâd imagine it came down to either jacking up tuition quite a bit [and dealing with the negative consequences of that] or moving from âneed blindâ to âneed awareâ [and dealing with the negative consequences of that].
Institutional priorities such as sustaining the dividend flow from institutional investments/endowment, maintaining relevance via D-1 sports, and maintaining staffing levels across the institution were most likely judged as sacrosanct. Thus the either-or construct in this case.
Probably a wise choice if it came down to an either-or decision.
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I am a current student at Holy Cross and attended the forum that was held on campus to explain the move away from being need-blind. There were multiple reasons for the shift, but ultimately, being need-blind was unsustainable for the college. For the class of 2023, Early decision was completely need-blind, and only 3% (92 students) of the class was admitted based off a need-aware policy.
At the forum, Dean Freije mentioned that the financial aid budget is growing faster than the tuition, and the school has been allocating more money to the financial aid budget every year. However, the discounted rate (the money that the college receives in tuition and then gives back to the student in financial aid) has been increasing. Additionally, the school started giving merit aid in addition to need-based aid. The school experimented with giving merit aid to the class of 2022 and there was a greater yield than in previous classes causing an over-enrollment. It was noticed that the yield rate for higher income prospective students was lower than the yield rate of needy students. The merit-aid was designed to help bring in some of those âhigherâ income students that would have attended other schools where they did receive merit aid.
The school still meets 100% of demonstrated need which is what matters to the students who need aid. If the school did not have this policy, getting accepted would not mean anything as they would not be able to afford it. Even with the switch to not being 100% need-blind when making admissions decisions, they are still trying to make the class as socioeconomically diverse as possible, and the Class of 2023 is still as diverse as all the previous classes, if not more.
Also, being D1 plays no role in this decision and is something that makes Holy Cross such a unique liberal arts institution.
Like BC and its new ED policy , HC is âaggressively pursuing applicants who express interest through Early Decisionâ. The ED admission rate according to the Common Data set is 81%. This is good for 1. Legacies who can pay full freight 2. athletes.
It is not good for middle income families or URM families who depend on aid and cannot commit and must compare to Financial Aid awards. Does meeting 100% of need include parental loans (and lots of them)? Methinks it doesâŠ