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Beginning with the incoming Class of 2019, we are pleased to announce a new approach to student financial aid and support. Features of this program include:</p>
<p>No application fee for any college applicant applying for need-based aid
No loans included in student financial aid packages
Easier aid application relying mainly on FAFSA-- CSS Profile no longer required
Additional support for low-income students through an expanded Odyssey Scholarship program</p>
<p>The latest sign of identity crisis at UChicago? Hefty pay raises to a large number of top staff, who have enriched themselves at great cost to their institution.</p>
<p>New analysis of tax data from publicly available IRS 990 forms shows that eight high-level UChicago administrators have received more than $7.6 million in compensation increases since 2007-2008, even as the school moved toward and suffered a credit downgrade. Over five years, administrators enjoyed pay increases of between 40 percent and 135 percent, and as a result each received $450,000 to $3.3 million from cumulative increases by the end of 2012-2013, the most recent year for which tax data is available.</p>
<p>UChicago thus ended up paying $2.5 million more annually for the combined services of these eight people — an increase from $3.4 to almost $6 million per year.<<<</p>
<p>As far as the USNews goes, the impact of more applications --which the OP might think is the driver-- is negligible. Ascertaining the validity of the resource numbers disclosed by Chicago and scrutinizing the faculty numbers might have a reverse impact on Chicago’s ranking. </p>
<p>But then that is more than one can expect from Morse and his sycophantic acolytes. </p>
<p>I don’t give a crap about Chicago’s USNWR ranking, but I think its new aid policy is really good, and forward-looking. It’s a good use of the university’s money, even better than paying top salaries to administrators. (It has been paying top salaries to faculty, too. There is little question that it wants to be a player.) It’s all part of a grand gamble that the capital campaign now underway will raise the money to sustain what it takes to play in the Premier League of world universities.</p>
<p>As for the article you link, it’s pretty much a steaming turd. No one remotely familiar with the University of Chicago has any doubt why, for instance, admission VP’s Jim Nondorf’s salary doubled in five years. You may think he’s the Devil incarnate, but even his worst critics acknowledge that he has done precisely what he was hired to do better than anyone imagined it could be done. (During Nondorf’s not-very-long tenure, annual applications have almost tripled, including plenty of high-quality applications, the rate at which admitted students enroll has increased from under 40% to over 60% – which is stunning, at most colleges that number does not change by more than a point or two per year – and consequently the admission rate has gone from about 25% to about 8%.) Or, for that matter, Bob Zimmer: it would be hard to find a university president who has done a more impressive job over the past decade. Yes, he has taken a calculated financial risk, but at this point it looks like his market timing has been impeccable, moving aggressively to renovate and expand the university during a period of low cost and ultra-low borrowing rates, and swapping out of debt on a wave of increasing prosperity and prestige for the institution.</p>
<p>When S was admitted to the U of C in 2008, they gave us an EFC equal to 2/3rds of our income, leaving us about $10K to live on. S’s NM scholarship was deducted from his grant. Yeah, the application was free. Big whoop. The Odyssey money was about $5K per year. Pardon me if I continue to be skeptical. (Admittedly, I do not know how a FAFSA-only application would have affected some of the oddities of our situation.)</p>
<p>I don’t give a crap about Chicago’s USNWR ranking, but I think its new aid policy is really good, and forward-looking. It’s a good use of the university’s money, even better than paying top salaries to administrators. </p>
<p>As for the article you link, it’s pretty much a steaming turd. No one remotely familiar with the University of Chicago has any doubt why, for instance, admission VP’s Jim Nondorf’s salary doubled in five years. You may think he’s the Devil incarnate, but even his worst critics acknowledge that he has done precisely what he was hired to do better than anyone imagined it could be done.
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<p>Were you so not inclined to post a rebuttal, you might have actually be better served to read the article as well as trying to understand the changes in the financial aid. And, perhaps understanding the implication of the changes for the many people who actually benefit from financial aid. The waiving of the fees for applications is helpful, but this is already widely available in the forms of waivers or through participation in programs such as Questbridge. The rest of the changes … well, let’s see what the school discloses on its future Common Data Sets. /sarcasm ends here.</p>
<p>As far as the rankings, if you really do not give a crap about the rankings of Chicago, that would make just two of us. It makes NO difference to me if Chicago were ranked 4th or 14th. You must confuse me with the fanboys who are obsessed with it and post endlessly about the rankings in your favorite Chicago subforum. I commented about it in response to the … OP question about the impact on the rankings. </p>
<p>Further, I am not sure why you have to :intimate" that I think that Nondorf is is the devil incarnate or does not deserve his salary. I was actually thinking he deserved a lot more as he seems to have been able to redress the course of a ship that was rudderlessly floating in the wrong direction, courtesy of the previous dinosaurs who were in charge. An astute reader and observer as yourself surely did not miss my posts from close to a decade ago that described how Chicago was missing the boat by actively discouraging plenty of applicants by clinging, and proudly) so to the NON-common Application. </p>
<p>Financial aid policies that increase aid to deserving families are good. Your comment “even better than paying top salaries to administrators” would be more powerful if the article I posted did not undermine it to the core. It is not an either/or choice. The salaries paid to a select group of people are just … business as usual in Chicago. Unless you dispute the contents of the article. </p>
<p>My guess is that UChicago realized they were losing matriculants because admittees received better Fin Aid packages at places like Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Amherst, etc. </p>
<p>I believe dropping student employment during the academic year and dropping loans… thus, increasing “free money” via grants/scholarships will generally help the middle class. Not necessarily increase Pell grant recipients.</p>
<p>However, by ONLY using FAFSA, not certain whether family debt, e.g. reflected in mortgage or other loan payments, will be accounted for… (As I recall, FAFSA primarily, maybe only, accounts for income.) which might not support my opinion above, i.e. be helpful to middle class families who need fin aid.</p>
<p>Regardless of UChicago’s “real rationale,” this change is definitely a positive.</p>
<p>xiggi, it’s true that you agree with some of what Nondorf has done at Chicago, but it’s also true that you and others rip into the Chicago admissions office on a regular basis for lack of transparency and other sins, many others (I’m not sure about you) decry their marketing practices, and lots of people in the Chicago community think that Admissions is undermining the unique character of the school. Nondorf is somewhat a controversial guy. That’s what was behind the “Devil” comment; it wasn’t directed at you specifically.</p>
<p>And of course I read the article: it was a smarmy, uncreative attack on compensation to administrators, that used charged words like “skimmed” to describe receiving pay that had been fully disclosed. One of the main rhetorical techniques in the article is to pretend that it’s completely obscure what these people have done to deserve their increased pay. I was pointing out that in one of the cases the author singled out – Nondorf – it wasn’t completely obscure at all. (I could also say the same thing for Julie Peterson; I am somewhat aware of what she has done because one of my kids worked for her predecessor for three years.) I haven’t taken the time to check it out, but I would not be surprised to learn that Zimmer’s and Greene’s high compensation for 2012 included some elements of deferred compensation, which is really common for top administrators in academia, and which can result in reported compensation varying a lot from year to year. (I looked at the list of highest paid private college presidents in 2009 and 2011, and there was only one person, and one other institution, in the top 10 on both lists.) </p>
<p>As it happens, I agree with the author that $1.9 million may be too much to pay a university president (not to mention the $3.3 million Zimmer got the previous year), but that’s not out of line with what a number of Chicago’s peers pay, including Yale, Penn, Columbia, and Tufts. The actual Chronicle articles show that Zimmer’s base pay is well below that of many peers. And yes, that’s part of the point of the article – everyone is doing it – but the article repeatedly chooses to make that point with innuendo, not evidence.</p>
<p>That’s why it’s a turd, and why I think you deserve criticism for promoting it.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, FAFSA-only financial aid at least appears to address the area where Chicago has been least competitive with peer institutions – it’s treatment of closely-held businesses and retirement savings in awarding financial aid.</p>
<p>They are not “only using FAFSA” – there is an additional “simple” U. of Chicago financial aid form that needs to be completed, and I’m guessing it is going to ask at least some questions about assets and maybe some questions about non-custodial parents.</p>
<p>JHS, I happy to read you do recognize that I have agreed with the changes implemented just as much as I opined in the past that Chicago was missing the boat by sending negative vibes to certain applicants. I happen to think that all schools in the category of Chicago are wielding similar weapons. ALL of them are trying to land as many successful applicants as possible, and are by default trying to maximize the number of applications. What I have decried has been the “holier than thou” attitude by certain fans of Chicago. </p>
<p>As far as the lack of transparency, if I were wrong on my analysis about the non-disclosure of simple elements such as the Common Data Set and the reporting of misleading numbers, you’d be right to find it unjustified. Yet, what I decried are backed by facts. Again, if you have a source of the that simple CDS, I will be more than happy to retract my “negative” comments. </p>
<p>Fair? </p>
<p>As far as the promotion of the Jacobin article, my only comment was “here is a different side of Chicago” and I quoted the article. I believe that the parallel between the vast increases in compensation at Chicago and the added financial were relevant. I also understand that Chicago is hardly the only school that lavish its top administrators with Cadillac packages. It happens at schools that are far less glorious or performant that Chicago. But the fact that is has become so “common” might be --and should be-- scrutinized by … most everyone, especially when the packages are approved by insiders and mercenary yes-sayers. </p>
<p>In the end, it is all part of an old narrative about how totally out of countrol the spending has become in almost all parts of our education system. From K-12 to the end of the tertiary education, the expenses have greatly exceeded the level of inflation, and in most cases, there is NOTHING to show for it or justify those rampant increases with results. </p>
<p>But I understand that you might have a different opinion about the economics of higher education. </p>