<p>Jennifer Delahunty Britz, dean of admissions and financial aid, reflects on Kenyon's financial aid picture: our practices, our resources, our growing need, and the joy of transforming a student's life through the gift of education</p>
<p>Q. Why is financial aid important for all Kenyon students?
A. Financial aid makes a Kenyon education affordable, regardless of a student's family circumstances. Having resources to help students whose families are simply unable to shoulder the full cost allows us to admit many of those whom we believe will make a powerful contribution to the Kenyon community. I'd also argue that all of us benefit when gifted, creative, intelligent students receive the high-quality education that allows them to give the most back to society. In this sense, financial aid is an investment whose dividends we all draw in the years to come.</p>
<p>Q. Does Kenyon choose students based on ability, dedication, and
promise alone, or in making admissions decisions do you look at the family's circumstances and ability to pay?
A. Ideally, Kenyon would able to choose a class based on merit alone. But the truth is that we have limited scholarship funding, so when it comes to the final portion of the class we do have to choose between candidates of comparable ability by looking at family circumstances. The least favorite part of my job is having to be need-aware in choosing candidates.</p>
<p>Q. Does Kenyon lose some students to peer colleges that can afford them better?
A. We do. Every year I'm surprised to learn of students attending a particular college when we denied or wait-listed them, but when I go back and look at how much funding they
needed, I'll remember that we did not admit them because of the amount of financial aid they required. Then there are the students we admit but lose to another college that could offer them a better financial package. We've lost valedictorians, rated athletes, community leaders, and talented artists.</p>
<p>Q. What is the current budget for financial aid? How much pressure does it put on the College's operating budget?
A. Financial aid is Kenyon's second largest expenditure after salary. It currently uses nearly a quarter23 percentof the College's approximately $80-million operating budget. We
distribute more than $20 million a year to all four classes at Kenyon, of which only a small amountaround 20 percentcomes from our relatively small endowment. In other words, 80 percent of the financial aid budget comes directly out of operating funds. That's the definition of being very tuition dependent.</p>
<p>Q. Do our competitor colleges have larger financial aid endowments than Kenyon?
A. Just about all of them do. For example, Kenyon's situation is nearly the inverse of Bowdoin's. Where 20 percent of our budget comes from endowment, nearly 80 percent of their financial aid budget is endowed. That means they have the use of that many more operating dollars to improve the programs, the facilities, faculty resources, student research, all the things we'd love to do to create an even better academic experience.</p>
<p>Q. In practical terms, what would more endowed financial aid
mean for students?
A. As tuitions have increased, more students are graduating with a higher level of loan indebtedness. The national average is just shy of $20,000 and Kenyon is slightly higher than that. If we had more resources in the scholarship arena, the first thing we would look at would be increasing the grant portion of a package, because loan indebtedness prevents some students from choosing Kenyon. For those who do come here, indebtedness is a kind of shackle on a student's future. Lower income kids especially may be discouraged from attending graduate or professional school, because they may not want to take on another layer of indebtedness.</p>
<p>Q. Is financial aid more crucial for middle-class families today than
it was previously?
A. The middle class is the group that's suffering really dramatically. If students from the lowest decile can get themselves prepared for college, they can usually be funded. The group that's prepared for college and can't afford it is the middle class. Our federal evaluations of who's eligible for financial aid is in many ways unrealistic, and anyone who's filled out those financial aid estimators knows that. Our formula for evaluating need-based aid qualification has to change at some point to address the middle class. For example, families of students who come from large cities where housing prices have gone through the roof have a lot of equity in their homes. That home equity is seen as a liquid asset available to pay for college. But that would require the family to take out a second mortgage and/or sell the home. You hope that people will make personal sacrifices for their children to attend a great college, but you hope they won't have to sell their home to do that. Even some professional families are finding it much harder to afford Kenyon.</p>
<p>Q. Could we change our formula if we had more endowed aid?
A. We could. Some of our peer colleges that are better endowed than Kenyon don't take home equity into account. They can afford to be more reasonable in their expectations of what middle class families can afford to pay. When a family is looking at what their yearly expenditure is going to be, and their child is admitted to two schools, it is difficult to compete.</p>
<p>Q. How well is Kenyon doing in providing access to students
from the lower economic quartile?
A. We do as well as we can with what we have, but there are heartbreaking cases where just a couple of thousand dollars prevent a student from coming here. We had a talented first-generation student from Cleveland whose bill would have been in the two- to five-thousand dollar range, but his family still can't make it happen after they've borrowed maximally and done everything they possibly can. This is a paycheck-to-paycheck kind of family, and they can't bridge the gap.</p>
<p>Q. How ethical are Kenyon's practices in making financial aid decisions?
A. I sleep very well at night because I know we treat everyone entirely the same by meeting 100 percent of their demonstrated financial need. We don't "gap," as some institutions do. That's where a student needs $20,000; the college offers $10,000 and hopes the student will come up with the rest. We don't do that. We don't do bait-and-switch, whereby a student is given a great aid package in the freshman year and then an inadequate one in the next three years. Some schools practice that. If we enroll a student, we do everything possible to get that student through all four years. But that means if we can't fully fund students, we won't admit them, even though we would want to have them at Kenyon in every other way.</p>
<p>Q. Why is it important to grow the financial aid endowment now?
A. The first priority is to grow the endowment so that financial aid can be there in perpetuity for future generations of students. An endowed financial aid budget secures an institution's future and makes that core commitment possible forever. We want the financial aid budget to be untouchable so Kenyon can always act on its deeply held values of access, affordability, diversity, and excellence.</p>
<p>Q. What would you want financial-aid donors to know?
A. I wish every donor could sit down to dinner with a scholarship student. It is one of the most satisfying things ever. Meeting one of those students, you realize that you've made a life-giving gift to a student who otherwise would not be here. And if you could see what those kids give back to the College once they're here! You'd be bowled over by those kids.
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<p>The Ultimate Wild Card
With a gift of $2.5 million to establish an endowed discretionary fund for admissions, Barry Schwartz boosts Kenyon's ability to compete for the best students</p>
<p>The landscape in the world of college admissions will begin to shift in 2009. The next generation of prospective students is smaller in numberand also, in all likelihood, less wealthy and more ethnically diverse. Barry F. Schwartz '70 understands the challenges this presents for institutions like Kenyon, and that's why he's committed $2.5 million to create the Barry F. Schwartz Strategic Scholarship Endowment.</p>
<p>"It's the ultimate admissions wild card, allowing Kenyon to attract students who can be real difference-makers," says Jennifer Britz, the dean of admissions and financial aid. She explains that the earnings generated by Schwartz's gift will create a dean's discretionary fund, outside the regular financial aid budget. That fund will give the admissions office flexibility in awarding scholarships, grants for loan relief, and other forms of aid to attract and retain students of high academic merit who may also be members of constituencies under-represented at the College.</p>
<p>Britz can think of a number of cases in which some extra aid might have proven decisive in bringing a great student to Kenyon. Recently, for example, an application came in from an African-American girl with outstanding test scores, a stellar GPA, and impressive accomplishments in extracurricular activities. She seemed like a perfect fit, and Kenyon readily accepted herbut lost her to Princeton. The decision may have come down to money. While Kenyon made a generous financial aid offer, it included $2,625 in loans.</p>
<p>"It's hard enough to compete against the Ivies," says Britz. "But it's even more difficult when you don't have the very best aid package. The Schwartz fund will allow me to eliminate loans for students like this one, who was accepted by many elite colleges. The competition for students like this is fierce."</p>
<p>Schwartz has served as a member of Kenyon's board of trustees since 2000. "When I joined the board, we had just over 2,100 applicants for the first-year class," recalls Schwartz. "I think this year we're going to exceed 4,600. The quality of the students who are going to Kenyon and the academic level has gone up dramatically. But too much of Kenyon's current financial aid budget comes out of operating revenue. The more that can be supported by our endowment, the less we burden our operating funds. I've created a separate line of funding for financial aid, which is very helpful. That's why I was attracted to it."</p>
<p>"Barry really understands the national trends in college admissions," says Sarah Kahrl, Kenyon's vice president for college relations. "His gift is one that allows Kenyon to be very nimble in responding to changes in our market. With new endowed support, Kenyon will be able admit the best class we can, not the best class we can afford."
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