That 65% endowment return for fiscal 2021 is really paying dividends. Good for WUSTL!!
I am amazed they were not need blind before considering the academic reputation of the University and its sizable endowment even before current returns
Unfortunately not much was earmarked for aid. When we talk about “need blind” I think we also need to talk about each school’s definition of full need. Keeping it simple and sticking to universities because many LACs do a fantastic job in this area, there are basically 4 “need blind” bands:
Band A HYPSM: highest percentage getting aid (typically 50%+) and the best packages. About 52% got cash assistance averaging 56,000
Band B Next 10 or so like an NU, Duke, Brown: average about 46% on institutional grant aid. Average cash package of $51,000
Band C Next 8 or so like an Emory, CMU, ND: average about 41% on number of students receiving institutional grant/scholly. But their packages only average about 41,500.
Band D basically every other “need blind” school. All over the place. Do not approach Band C standard or the “sniff test”.
WashU by any objective measure was already outperforming Band D. About 41% of their students got cash (Band C level) and the average need based grant/scholly package was $53,500 (band B level).
They were already operating an admissions policy that was on the balance as inclusive as the average private “need blind” university. But the reality of it was they were probably rejecting 1 in every 10 need based admissions from band B to keep their aid packages up to their desired standard.
To put the new fund into perspective, if they had 90% of this new $32 million/yr addition before the classes of 2021-2024 were admitted, they’d be in Band A. Everyone is stepping up their game however, so I’d expect them to be at/above the Band B average going forward.
Nice analysis.
Thanks. I think this is one of those cases where the school probably made the right deal given the budget available.
They probably could have gone need blind earlier and increased their need-based enrollment share from 41% to 45%. But in the process the average additional debt burden would have been $20,000-$25,000 higher for each of those students. I don’t think that’s a great trade off. At those kind of dollars, they made the right choice but got a lot of flack for it.
Two major changes in admissions at WashU this year: first, dropping demonstrated interest; now, going need-blind.
Since we are in the admissions game (and potentially looking at ED), I’m going to ask some burning questions….
What will these changes mean for admissions? Will we see an increase in applications this year? Lower acceptance rate? Higher yield? Greater SES diversity? Will we see changes in this cycle or in the years ahead?
Probably about 70% of colleges in the US are need-blind for admission. But the vast majority of them do not claim to “meet full need” for all students, and those that do have varying definitions of “need”.
Also, colleges that are need-blind for admission mean that they do not consider financial need when evaluating individual applicants. But, before applications are in, they may set policy on how admissions are done that can give a predicted level of financial need for the entire class. For example, an increased advantage for legacy tends to reduce the class’ financial need, even if a few individual legacy applicants and admits have lower income parents.
??? Only about 120 schools in the country have explicitly stated they are need-blind. Are there other schools that don’t consider need and just accept/reject only to see if the numbers work (or don’t) later? I’m sure.
I agree with the rest though. There are colleges that admit without considering ability to fund and then carve out aid deals with a fixed budget provided. There are schools that set the definition of “meeting full need” at different levels.
I guess what I was trying to say is that if the goal is to get lower income students to attend college X, we can’t look at need blind without also examining the aid packages provided to those students. If you can’t realistically pay, what’s the point of admission? Need-based scholarships/grant $$$ per FT undergrad is a useful metric.
WashU (pre-need blind) vs. 40 need blind private national unis: they were at the median
Wash U vs. 24 or 25 need blind+full need met private national unis: they were not in the bottom quarter.
But they got raked pretty good by folks who didn’t look at both elements of financial inclusion equation.
Far more than that.
Lots of public universities use purely academic-stats-based admission, without reference to financial need (but they will not meet need for all students, particularly out-of-state students). And then there are the numerous open admission community colleges, which are need (and most other things) blind for admission.
I think you are referring to the 100 -120 or so schools that have stated they are need-blind AND meet full need (according to their proprietary formulas).
There are private schools that are need blind and don’t meet full need like Bucknell, NYU, and SLU.
Many, probably most, public universities state they are need blind…all of the UCs, CSUs, entire U Illinois system, U Wisc, U Washington, U Vermont and the list goes on, are need blind and won’t even come close to meeting full need, especially for OOS students.
I think this gets to the difficulty of determining what need blind entails. Two questions.
1-does the school explicitly state they have a need blind admissions policy?
2-does this policy extend to all US citizens and legal permanent residents?
There are only about 120 schools in the country that can say yes to both of these questions.
A subset of these schools will claim to meet full need.
A subset of those schools will actually calculate need in such a way as to not place undue financial hardship on all students attending.
There are other schools who in practice don’t pay attention to need until they send out the acceptance letter. But those schools have made no transparent formalized declaration of their policy and are free to change it tomorrow without notice.
We could also argue that any school with a question on their app asking an applicant’s intent to seek financial aid can not be need blind.
I’ve never seen a list of need blind schools longer than about 120 schools and I’ve seen articles quoting administrators who would know (from institutions like a Vassar) stating there are only 100, 110, 120 need blind schools (regardless of net need) in the country.
It’s certainly possible I’m wrong. If so, I’d like to see a list of longer list of schools, but I don’t think that’s the case.
When I was talking about the bands above, those lists/this criteria was what I was referring to. Band C = full need/very close to full need (>95%) claimed to be met in a need blind admissions process. These were the lower end full need calcs. Band B = higher need calcs. Band A = highest need calcs. Most make a loan free commitment.
Just because there isn’t an accurate third party aggregated list of need blind colleges doesn’t mean that there aren’t far more need blind colleges than need aware. @ucbalumnus’ estimate of 70% is probably in the ball park.
Simply go to the websites of the colleges that I listed above and you will see that they explicitly state they are need blind. Just the UCs and CSUs give you 33 need blind colleges.
Simply asking that question gives a college no visibility to an applicant’s level of need.
Many families apply for financial aid and don’t qualify for any need based aid. Some families apply for financial aid simply to access the Federal Direct Student Loans, which is available to anyone, regardless of need.
Yes, you are. But that’s ok, we are all here to share our knowledge and learn from each other.
Just because some third party lists show only about 120 colleges does not mean that they are the only 120 colleges. Indeed, there are over 100 community colleges in California that are need-blind (and pretty much everything-else-blind) for admissions. None of them are shown in those lists of 120 need-blind colleges.
Common data sets and the College Board web site that probably pulled from them recently had an entry for colleges and universities to self-report whether they were need-blind or need-aware. Web scraping the College Board web site then found that about 70% were need-blind. Unfortunately, those entries are no longer present.
In California, there are 116 community colleges, 23 CSUs, and 9 UCs that are need-blind for admission. That makes 148 colleges right there. They do not claim to meet need for all students, especially out-of-state students to whom they give no financial aid at all.
Most public universities are need blind because a) they don’t promise to meet need for most of their students, b) they can’t reject in-state applicants for financial reasons (they don’t typically offer need-based financial aid to out-of-state students, and/or c) they simply don’t have the resources to evaluate the financial need of all applicants at the same time of making admission decisions.