<p>Did anyone read the article in yesterday's nyt about Reed college dropping 100 fin aid students from their accepted pile and replacing them with full pays? Long article in which Reed bares its trouble with balancing meeting need for FA with keeping a top of the line teaching environment.</p>
<p>A follow-up from Reed’s president:</p>
<p>[damnportlanders:</a> NYT Reed article follow-up.](<a href=“http://community.livejournal.com/damnportlanders/14903397.html]damnportlanders:”>http://community.livejournal.com/damnportlanders/14903397.html)</p>
<p>i think dropping 100 fin aid recipients for full pay reflects an overly-optimistic estimation of the financial aid demand this year. They really should have been more cautious, instead of treading on the dreams of so many college students and throwing them into the deep end. Where will those 100 people go?</p>
<p>^ To some other school, where those rejected from a school always go. What does “treading on the dreams” mean? Many kids apply to schools where they are rejected. The only thing that’s new here is the increased number of needy kids turned away this year. Reed has been need-aware for many years.</p>
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<p>Huh? To a cheaper state school or one with more aid dollars.</p>
<p>No one is owed a private college education. If the money is not there schools can’t give it out. Being need blind is always a school’s choice. Reed and other colleges are not in the business of making dreams come true. This is just another reality of the deep recession we’re in and colleges are not immune.</p>
<p>From Reed’s president’s letter:</p>
<p>"Reed’s financial aid policy has been, and continues to be, based on three firmly held principles:</p>
<ol>
<li>We award financial aid solely on the basis of financial need. Unlike many of our peers, we do not award “merit aid.”</li>
<li>We meet 100 percent of the demonstrated financial aid need for all admitted students. Unlike many of our peers, we do not practice “gapping” (i.e., awarding less than 100 percent of need as a way to stretch financial aid dollars).</li>
<li>We guarantee that we will meet 100 percent of the demonstrated financial aid need of all continuing students by re-evaluating financial aid packages on an annual basis.</li>
</ol>
<p>There is a fourth principle that we aspire to achieve, namely, to be fully need-blind. Ideally, the ability to pay should never enter into a decision of whether to admit a particular student. In recent years we have come quite close to attaining this ideal. The vast majority of applicants are admitted without consideration of family resources. But, compared to a handful of truly need-blind colleges and universities, we have had to put a limit on the number of students we could admit on a truly need-blind basis. The troubling news about the current recession–and the central message of the Times article–is that demand for financial aid has increased this year even faster than our sizable increase in the financial aid budget.</p>
<p>This does not mean that Reed is ungenerous in providing financial aid. Indeed, the case is quite to the contrary. Over the past 10 years, our financial aid budget has more than doubled. In the upcoming academic year, we expect that 51 percent of Reed students will receive financial aid, with the average annual grant awarded being $32,630. Of this amount, more than $30,000 comes directly from Reed’s endowment and operating budget, with the remainder coming from state, federal, and other private sources. The percentage provided by these external sources has steadily diminished over time.</p>
<p>Nor does this mean that Reed has had to make compromises in the quality of its educational program. The college continues to attract a student body of uncommon intellectual passion and talent, and it maintains the academic rigor and intensity for which it is justly famous."</p>