<p>See article explaining the program: Washington</a> and Lee offers income-based free tuition | roanoke.com.</p>
<p>Please, no soap box oration about how unfair it is to those earning more ... the purpose of posting this is to let CC'ers know about the policy, in case it will benefit them. The money is all from private donations to the school's endowment.</p>
<p>There is less to this than meets the eye.</p>
<p>W&L’s net price calculator at <a href=“http://wlu.studentaidcalculator.com/[/url]”>Washington And Lee University - Net Price Calculator; indicates that a family with income of $74,000 with one student at W&L will see a net price of $7,823 after an institutional grant of $51,877 subtracted from a list price of $59,700, of which tuition is $44,507.</p>
<p>I.e. W&L’s financial aid formula already gives more aid than this “new” offer, so it is likely that this announcement is more a marketing announcement than a significant change in financial aid policy.</p>
<p>Note that rerunning W&L’s net price calculator with income of $76,000 still resulted in an institutional grant greater than tuition (not much different from what it is at income of $74,000).</p>
<p>I find the wording of this announcement weird. It’s almost like they’re saying that the tuition cost will be “free” rather than awarding a $XXk grant for tuition. Then it says that a grant will be given towards other costs.</p>
<p>So, are they saying that a 0 EFC student would get …</p>
<p>Tuition: free
Room, Board, etc…$2Xk grant to cover the rest???</p>
<p>Is this an accounting/money game. Less grant money awarded because those kids’ tuition is “free”???</p>
<p>Maybe I’m confused. lol</p>
<p>No, they are just promising that the financial aid grant will be at least as much as tuition is for students from families with income under $75,000. Basically, they are marketing what appears to already be the case, since the net price calculator reveals financial aid grants greater than tuition at income of $74,000 and $76,000.</p>
<p>(Remember UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity?)</p>
<p>I think it’s a great marketing ploy to get a more diverse student body. Good for W&L, a school which has a reputation of a wealthy Greek hard partying school. I think they are trying to attract more applications and more students from a low/middle class family’s. </p>
<p>I know that when my D applied that they offered no loans to any who qualified for FA. They also offer a scholarship program. I give it to W&L for trying to change and grow a bigger national profile.</p>
<p>Ucb, I would expect the NPC reflects the new policy already since families are already using it in planning for fall 2014. Or am I misunderstanding where you are getting the numbers for the “old” finaid policy?</p>
<p>I just think the wording is weird. </p>
<p>Even Blue and Gold promise states that under $80k you’ll get enough grants to cover tuition, it doesn’t say “it’s free”.</p>
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<p>New or old (whether or not it is changed), W&L’s NPC indicates that there is no special discontinuity in financial aid at $75,000 family income that would exist if the new policy were overlaid on top of a previously less generous policy that resulted in grants less than tuition at $75,000 family income.</p>
<p>Actually, it is not that hard to see – a “meets full need” school will probably produce a low enough EFC at $75,000 family income that even after adding a typical ESC, the net price (EFC + ESC) will be lower than typical non-tuition cost of attendance. Hence, the grants will be tuition or more.</p>
<p>I think it’s what deb, mom2ck and ucb said: This has been W&L’s policy since whenever they jumped on the needsblind/meets full need/ no loans under XXK etc bandwagon. But the new weird 
wording “free” is intended to really get across to families who could take advantage of their generous FA what it means. Last June I sat in an auditorium at Yale with hundreds of low income parents for a FA seminar. Almost no one in the room understood how FA works and most were confused about what grants and loans were and how each works. I think substituting the word ‘free’ for ‘grants’ may help reach the intended the audience. Why they needed to package it as a new offer is not clear. </p>
<p>In fact I just took time to read the article (!) and here it is: “It’s not like this represents a dramatic change as to how we approach tuition and financial aid,” Ruscio said. “What it does represent is a new message for students who think they can’t afford to go here.”</p>
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<p>Probably because it is a lot clearer to say “free tuition if your family income is under $75,000” than to send people running to the net price calculator to find out what “meets full need means”. Note that $75,000 is about the 65th percentile household income in the US, and still above the median for households headed by someone age 45-54 (most likely age to have high school or college student kids). Hence, the message easily covers the lower and middle income households that it is aimed at.</p>
<p>Indeed, any school which “meets full need” should be able to make a similar promise, though perhaps with the threshold varying by how it calculates EFC, how much ESC it expects, and how much the non-tuition cost of attendance is.</p>
<p>I just ran their npc with low income and various levels of assets and it’s apparent that assets are taken into account too.</p>
<p>I am a W&L parent; many of the above comments are correct. What everyone on CC has to understand is that the vast majority of parents looking to send kids to college do not know about CSS, FAFSA, EFC, etc. CC contributors are the “top 1%ers of the ins and outs of college admission.” Now imagine that every high school college counselor and a bunch of parents get an email with a subject: FREE tuition for admitted students with income of less tha $75K. The perception to those counselors (and parents) has been that W&L is a good school for rich kids - I won’t even think about it. Because of this announcement some really high achieving kids that would never have considered the school apply, get admitted and attend. This helps the school achieve its goal of trying to attract a more diverse student body. I give credit to the school for being creative.</p>
<p>Also, one minor point. The announcement does not mention assets - so I assume that some people who are a little asset heavy but income light will benefit from this. Here are the details from the W&L website:</p>
<p>[Washington</a> and Lee Unveils New Financial Aid Initiative :: News :: Washington and Lee University](<a href=“http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2013/10/14/washington-and-lee-unveils-new-financial-aid-initiative/]Washington”>http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2013/10/14/washington-and-lee-unveils-new-financial-aid-initiative/)</p>