<p>what universities and/or colleges are similar in atmosphere to swarthmore? i've seen comparisons made with u chicago and haverford, as well as other lacs like williams and amherst. but any other universities? thanks a lot!</p>
<p>I have never been able to identify another school exactly like Swarthmore.</p>
<p>You almost have to break it down and find schools that are similar to one aspect or another of Swarthmore.</p>
<p>For example, you can look at the academic intensity side of Swarthmore and say that UChicago is like Swarthmore. But, in reality, UChicago is nothing like Swarthmore. In many ways, it would be hard to find two schools that are more different.</p>
<p>Or, you could look at size and say that Davidson is like Swarthmore. But, Davidson is nothing like Swarthmore -- many Davidson students would be miserable at Swarthmore and many Swarthmore students would be miserable at Davidson.</p>
<p>Or, you could look at liberal politics, tolerance, and social issue and say that Wesleyan is like Swarthmore. But, Wesleyan is nothing like Swarthmore. For one thing, it's nearly double the size.</p>
<p>I suppose that Bryn Mawr and Haverford are the most like Swarthmore because they both have Quaker roots, in similar settings, in the same city, located just a few miles away. But, Bryn Mawr is all women, so it's really not like Swarthmore. And, Haverford has different financial underpinnings and a different student body/campus culture, so it's not exactly like Swarthmore either.</p>
<p>In many ways, I think Pomona may be the most like Swarthmore - finances, size, academics. But the difference between suburban LA and an old East Coast neighborhood gives them a totally diffferent feel, as does the fact that Pomona is part of 5000 students in the same acreage as Swarthmore's 1475 students. So, they end up not really being similar at all in terms of day to day experience.</p>
<p>From a statistical standpoint, Amherst is the most like Swarthmore and it is the LAC that has the most cross-admits with Swarthmore. But, my impression is that Amherst and Swarthmore are very different. Stats are the same, but culturally, Amherst strikes me as being much closer to Williams.</p>
<p>I think a better approach is to identify what you might like about Swarthmore and then consider what other schools might make sense on the same list of possible colleges.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to identify universities that are similar to Swarthmore. Virtually everything about Swarthmore, from its academic approach to its campus culture, flows directly from its small size and really doesn't scale up to double, triple, or quadruple the enrollment. In some ways, Brown might be the closest. Academically, I think there are similarities to Rice; however, the comparison between downtown Houston and the Borough of Swarthmore is a bit of a stretch! There are certainly some similarities to UChicago -- nerdy, academic, demanding -- but beyond that the comparison falls apart quickly. Swarthmore is fundamentally a warm, fuzzy, comfortable place; not a description that comes to mind when thinking about UChicago.</p>
<p>I find it interesting the extent to which ID cites Swarthmore's endowment size as a determining factor in campus milieu even against a neighboring school such as Haverford. Tell us ID, before the dot.com bubble of the '90s sent Swat's bank roll into the stratosphere, were Haverford and Swarthmore all that different? And what makes them so different, now? FWIW, in 1988-89, the top LAC endowments were:</p>
<p>Williams - $307 million
Swat - $305 million
Wes - $275 million
Pomona - $271 million
Amherst - $267 million
Oberlin - $235 million</p>
<p>You have to look at per student endowment.</p>
<p>BTW, Haverford has had endowment issues since the late 1960's/early 1970's when ill-timed growth forced them into a decade of budget deficits and spending down the endowment. Prior to that, they had a larger per student endowment than Swarthmore.</p>
<p>The impact, even today, is noticeable -- from facilities to the necessity of enrolling a signficantly higher percentage of full-pay students. Per student endowment is a key issue in Haverford's strategic planning. The same is true at Oberlin, which has set a goal of downsizing the student body in order to achieve "financial sustainability" (they have been spending from their endowment at an unsustainable level).</p>
<p>To answer your question about the specific impact of endowment:</p>
<p>Net per student tuition, room, board:</p>
<p>Swarthmore: $26,585
Haverford: $28,896</p>
<p>Per student operating expenditures:</p>
<p>Swarthmore: $68,304
Haverford: $54,223</p>
<p>Net per student endowment spending:</p>
<p>Swarthmore: $29,155
Haverford: $14,423</p>
<p>"Per student operating expenditures:
Swarthmore: $68,304
Haverford: $54,223"</p>
<p>If you believe that any of these schools, from Podunk to Harvard and Yale, is losing money on full pay tuition students, you will beleive anything.</p>
<p>ID - You mention the financial problems Haverford and Oberlin are currently going through. However, everything I've read about it suggests the problems started because they spent too much on the very things that Swarthmore currently is spending much of its endowment on: buildings and high-need financial aid applicants.</p>
<p>Don't misquote me. I did not say that Oberlin and Haverford are experiencing financial problems. That would imply that they are not financially sound, wealthy institutions. They are both solid financially and, by no stretch of the imagination, at risk.</p>
<p>However, both face budget limitations in the things that they would like to do to improve their competitiveness in the marketplace. Included among those are the perceived need to add facilities. Both are explicitly concerned about the current size of their "tuition discount rates."</p>
<p>Interestingly, Oberlin has opted to shrink their student body by keeping the same number of full-pay students and reducing financial aid students. Haverford is considering increasing the size of their student body.</p>
<p>Mensa:</p>
<p>The numbers don't lie. The top dozen or more liberal arts colleges clearly spend more in operating expenses per student than they receive in per student revenue, even from a full-pay customer. For example, Swarthmore's faculty and staff compensation expense alone is $39k per student.</p>
<p>It is precisely this differential, over a long period of time, that makes them so attractive to consumers, resulting in a surplus of willing buyers (a low acceptance rate) and "prestige" as indicated by their positions in the top ranking slots.</p>
<p>The same thing is true on the university side with the top per student spending and per student endowment schools grouped at the top of the rankings. It is, however, somewhat more difficult to quantify per undergrad spending at universities because their financial statements combine undergrad-related and non-undergrad related expenditures.</p>
<p>interesteddad , your info on the faculty costs at Swart is enlightening. Maybe the top LACs are outliers here. A study called "tuition subsidy report" seems to say that at some schools, most financial aid is in fact a redistribution from full pays or most pays to financial aid recipients. Moreover, many schools with small or no endowments or alum giving seem to offer pretty serious levels of financial aid, not IVY level perhaps, but a lot of money. Most of this must come from tuition. Finally, how do private schools like Trinity stay in business if what you say is true? They charge roughly what Swart does, but don't have near the endowment. Are their faculty costs that much less than Swart?</p>
<p>Mensa - All institutions of higher education seem to adhere to the same general rule: spend as much as you possibly can; once the basics, like faculty, classrooms, libraries and laboratories are paid for, it's really a matter of institutional whim, cajolery and persistence what else gets added to the milieu. This seems especially true of LACs where, beyond a certain point, the law of diminishing returns begins to kick in spending-wise: one of the most persistent arguments in all of higher education is whether lowering a student/faculty ratio to the point of 1/1 actually represents a desirable pedagogical goal? Ostensibly, <em>some</em> students are necessary in order to make a classroom more interesting. With a large enough endowment a school could probably house every student in his or her own McMansion, complete with maid service. Again, is that necessarily desirable? Every school fights it's own little battle with fantasy versus pragmatism, and with cool heads, pragmatism usually wins.</p>
<p>Yes. Typically schools below the "big dogs" in per student endowment have lower faculty costs. For example, the undergrad portion of Oberlin (excluding the conservatory) has a student/faculty ratio of 12:1 compared to 8:1 at Swarthmore. Oberlin also pays an average full professor $93k versus $113k at Swarthmore. And, I don't believe they have Swarthmore's guaranteed one-semester full-pay sabbatical for every 3 years of teaching. So, yes, there are signficant differences in faculty cost.</p>
<p>As far as competing, remember that there are only a relative handful of schools with huge per student endowments and enormous across the board subsidies (per student spending minus per student charges). While those schools offer attractive financial value, dollars are just one form of currency in purchasing college education products. The other form of currency is academic qualifications (SATs and the like). The schools like Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, and Pomona charge a very high price in this currency -- more than most of the market can "afford". </p>
<p>The short supply of slots at these big endowment LACs is likely to continue because there is a real financial disincentive for them to grow. They literally lose money and dilute the endowment with every additional student (other than slow incremental growth supported by endowment growth). Williams actually has slightly fewer students today than it did ten years ago and incoming freshman classes have only grown 13% since the huge increase in freshman class in the fall of 1971 to accomodate the newfangled students with skirts. Swarthmore's growth curve looks like a straight line -- a steady 1% or so per year over the last 100 years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Moreover, many schools with small or no endowments or alum giving seem to offer pretty serious levels of financial aid, not IVY level perhaps, but a lot of money. Most of this must come from tuition.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not sure that you are looking at financial aid in economics terms. In effect, financial aid (either need-based or merit-based) is really just good old-fashioned price discounting. The discount is given for the same reason that Walmart offers discount pricing -- to generate more sales. The best analogy is airline pricing. Instead of a fixed price, the price of various seats on the flight are adjusted to maximize both load factors and revenue. You sell seats for as much as you can to fill the plane.</p>
<p>The weird thing about the college market is that it is a "status" product -- much like designer handbags. So, even lower cost schools are reluctant to publish a lower sticker price. They conceal the price discounting in the form of merit-aid. We are seeing rapidly increased merit-aid discounting for that reason. Plus, for the cost of one poor student, they can enroll 4 or 5 wealthier students with relatively small merit-aid discounts. This has the added benefit of increasing a school's median SAT scores, thus increasing perceived "status".</p>
<p>So ID, even though the colleges say that they don't actively and consciously discriminate or choose students based on wealth or economic terms, the statistics show taht they do? All these facts seem to show conflicting facts of what the top schools are really looking for. Do they favor the rich students with high test scores that can pay for most of their tuition? Or the URMs with lower test scores that have had fewer oppurtunities and may need a lot more financial aid?</p>
<p>meestasi:</p>
<p>It depends on the school. Every school has a financial aid budget and a well-defined strategy for how many full-pay students, merit-aid students, and need-based aid students they want in the mix to meet that budget.</p>
<p>Schools that struggle to enroll enough full-pay students will tend to use merit-aid discounting, on the theory that enrolling students who will pay $30,000 (after merit discount) maximizes revenue.</p>
<p>For the most part, the schools with the largest endowments tend to have the most ethnically diverse student bodies, simply because they can afford to have higher percentages of need-based aid students. These also tend to be the schools that do not offer merit aid. Most of these schools have the desire, and financial resources, to make diversity a priority. For example, Harvard and MIT have most ethnic diversity among East Coast universities. I believe that Wellesley, Swarthmore, and Amherst have the highest among East Coast LACs. Smith probably has the highest percentage of lower income students, although their net revenue per student is actually higher than Swarthmore's (they have a larger loan component and charge more room and board).</p>
<p>Here's a link to an article this week with Swarthmore's admissions dean commenting on financial aid. Other than my sceptism about "magic" playing a role in Swarthmore consistently enrolling 50% full-pay students each year, I think his comments are an honest portrayal of the school's commitment to diversity.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that, as a school's median SATs increase, they are automatically going to have a higher percentage of full-pay students in the applicant pool (or vice versa). Test scores and family income are closely linked. So, at the very high SAT schools, diversity is an intentional choice. They could enroll 100% full-pay students if they wanted to.</p>
<p>So, of the LACs, which are the few that will probable offer the best financial aid packages to middle class students?</p>
<p>Private Joker:</p>
<p>Great question. Unfortunately, there are as many answers as there are people applying to colleges. Everybody's financial situation is different.</p>
<p>If you qualify for need-based aid, then generally the schools with the big endowments that offer need-based aid only and meet 100% of need will be the best bets -- although the offers can vary significantly.</p>
<p>If you do not qualify for need-based aid, then you need to look at schools that offer significant merit aid discounts. Keep in mind that to get merit aid, you generally need to be at the top of the school's applicant pool, so you typically have to aim a bit lower than the absolutely most selective schools you might be able to get into.</p>
<p>You can get all the data (percentage qualifying for need-based aid, percent grants versus loans, percent receiving merit aid, etc.) from the USNEWS premium online edition.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, you have to apply to a variety of schools and compare aid packages in April. Unfortunately, there's no other surefire method.</p>
<p>At Wesleyan about 41% of students receive non-merit based grant money directly from Wesleyan; The average grant is in excess of $19,000. At Swarthmore, I believe the figure is 48%:</p>
<p>48% of the student body in 2004/05 received need based-aid. 53% of the freshmen last year.</p>
<p>Average total package was $27,421 of which $23,604 was grants/scholarships.</p>
<p>Does anyone (probably interesteddad) know if Swarthmore has a history of denying middle- and upper-middle class students aid entirely? Is there a possibility that a student applying for financial aid, despite college-geared investments and the like, might be flat-out made to pay in full?</p>