<p>I think you grossly underestimate the net benefits of the research overhead factor. At most schools 80-90% of the research funding is Federal. The money is reducing the fixed cost nut that would be there anyway and frees up CONSIDERABLE funds for other uses. That's why it is a revenue line item in most school budgets net of the actual cost of research.</p>
<p>My faith in billion dollar endowments has just been renewed:
<a href="http://www.amherst.edu/%7Epubaff/news/news_releases/2007_2008/2007_07no%20loans.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.amherst.edu/~pubaff/news/news_releases/2007_2008/2007_07no%20loans.html</a></p>
<p>Many times I have argued that institutional resources AND the willingness to use them to support undergraduate education is one of the 4 major factors (better students, smaller classes, better/more accessible faculty) determining an excellent undergraduate experience. This move by Amherst is a perfect example of using the institutional resources to help undergraduates. If only some of those other schools with multi-billion dollar endowment would talke similar steps....Great job and kudos to Amherst.</p>
<p>While I applaud Amherst (and HYP) for eliminating loans for low income students, all schools continue to raise prices on the middle class at several times the rate of inflation. Why not use some of the endowment to reduce costs for EVERYBODY. I suspect the average class size has changed little over the past decade whereas the average tuition has doubled.</p>
<p>I agree with Russ456. Its great they are eliminating loans and replacing it with funding for the low income students. But this completely ignores the middle class students, who are hardly rich, who are trying to pay off university tuition and living expenses that are going up at 3 or 4 times the rate of inflation. Private school tuition, approaching nearly 40k in many top colleges and univerities, not to mention room and board and living expenses, is in my mind ridiculous, especially considering the prices 10 or 15 years ago. More universities should also look to help these individuals, many of whom come from middle class families, and will encounter similar debt to those from low income families graduating from the same universities. yet under the new funding for low income students, the middle class students will be strapt with far more debt than the low income students, even when most of the middle class students are recieving little or no help from their parents. 50k or 60k a year is simply too much for most middle class families to significantly help with. yet these kids will graduate with all that debt, while kids from low income families, while going to the same university, will graduate with little or no debt. Both the middle and low income students will experience similar job opportunities after graduation since they are attending the same colleges, yet one graduates with no debt, and the other recieving as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars. And this is not even including graduate school, which many students at high end colleges will likely attend.</p>
<p>^^^They seem to be paying lip-service to the middle-class. Are they defining middle-class too narrowly?:</p>
<p>"Currently, middle-income students take on federal and college loans (like Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans and Amherst College Student Loans) as part of financial aid packages that also include scholarships, grants and job opportunities. Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, the loan component of this financial aid package will be replaced with scholarships; no Amherst student will be required to take out loans in order to come to Amherst." [from the Amherst website]</p>
<p>/revive</p>
<p>can someone post the 2008 data set?</p>