<p>Children from poorer families are already disadvantaged as compared to ones from wealthier ones. For Wesleyan to further disadvantage those from poorer families is shameful.</p>
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<p>Wesleyan is still a Questbridge partner school. Poorer families who apply through questbridge as well as poorer outstanding students that the college really wants will still have a way to attend the school.</p>
<p>When schools like Wesleyan switch from need-blind to need-conscious, it is always a decision that is very difficult to make, and it is painful to those within the institution who must make it. But it is the only way that the institution is able to meet the financial need of as many applicants as possible, including those at the upper end of the applicant pool who need full funding. </p>
<p>As I pointed out in an earlier post, need-conscious colleges and universities typically rate their applicants without regard to their ability to pay. So it is usually those who were borderline applicants to begin with who may get cut from the admit pile if their need is high.</p>
<p>Colleges that move from need-blind to need-conscious usually do so because the number of students with need has grown significantly, and they are attempting to accept and fund as many of those students as possible.</p>
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<p>The money is simply not there. Two decades of spending fundraised dollars has finally taken its toll (more investing of fundraised dollars has since been instituted). To stay need-blind, Wesleyan would have to increase the amount of loans in its aid awards, and it is choosing to have the low-income students that are admitted not have a large amount of loans when they graduate. It’s a trade-off, but Wesleyan is not taking this change lightly. </p>
<p><a href=“http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2012/06/04/financial-aid-now-more-than-ever/[/url]”>http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2012/06/04/financial-aid-now-more-than-ever/</a></p>
<p>“The money is simply not there.” Well, the endowment has over $600 million for a school with 2800 students. It is one of the best endowed colleges in the country given its size (better than a few of the Ivies in fact). Given this wealth, I think any bias (however minor) against students from lower income families says more about their priorities and ethics than it does about their resource constraints.</p>
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<p>Look at it this way: you run a restaurant. One day out of the goodness of your heart, you decide to give free meals to poor customers on a first come, first serve basis. For the first couple of weeks, everything is fine; a trickle of disadvantaged people have heard through the grapevine that you are providing this community service; you still have plenty of paying customers to cover the cost. Result: happiness. </p>
<p>Now, fast-forward two or three months later: your program is so successful that people are coming from all over different parts of the city just in order to eat at your restaurant for free. Why? Because times are tough, the recession has lasted too long, the government is cracking down on food-stamps and even so-called, soup kitchens are starting to charge “contributions” in order to stay open. Suddenly, you have become “the only game in town” and customers requesting free meals have overtaken the number of “full-pay” customers. Result: your restaurant closes down - and, NO ONE eats. Zilch. Bupkus.</p>
<p>Now, you could have instituted a limit on the number of free meals, something like “the first 30 customers who have proof of need”, and possibly stayed in business a little longer. But, you chose to keep your “priorities and ethics” intact and go down in flames. </p>
<p>Which scenario is more selfish in the long-run?</p>
<p>The analogy does not quite hold here. Wesleyan is not anywhere close to going broke with the budget it has. Though I don’t fault them for going this way, and give them credit for making it clear that they are now need aware, it does say something about its priorities, given its financial situation. </p>
<p>I remember when Oberlin decided to go with merit awards to “buy” the students it wanted the most over giving more complete financial aid packages. It all comes down to a business decision and ratings.</p>
<p>As much as I did not care for the nose-in-the-air attitude of Wesleyan adcoms as described in ‘The Gatekeepers’ from about 10 years back, I applaud the college now for actually saying what they are doing, and stating its potential ramifications down the road.</p>
<p>They see that what has gone on in the past is not sustainable long-term. Other colleges will choose to ‘say’ they’re still need-blind, and use every trick in the book to circumvent it.</p>
<p>I agree, Jnm.</p>
<p>Re the 600,000,000 endowment and the comments of “shameful” actions, I would say that you have not run the numbers. If we look at the endowment with sound actuarial principles, we will see that Wesleyan actually exceeds the norm with scholarship funds. A prudent use of the endowment would dictate that NO MORE than 4-5% per year be used. In this way the endowment should last - FOREVER, which is a good goal for such an fund. 5% of 600,000,000 is 30 million per year. If you look at Wesleyan’s common data set, they gave (per 2011-2012) 43, 999, 247 in institutional grants. How can they give more than the 5%? Gifts from donors, better than average investment results, etc.</p>
<p>However, in times of declining investment return (read now, and last few years), it is very difficult to get above average returns. I would say that they have done well with the scholarships, not shamefully.</p>
<p>I personally attended college and graduate school with some scholarship funds, so I do not come to the discussion with a bias of privilege. However, with my education, I did learn how funds and money should be managed so that the fund, hopefully, can be sustained in perpetuity. It would be poor management to do otherwise.</p>
<p>MAsteve wrote
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<p>Actually, if you do the math and calculate endowment per student, Wesleyan is poorer than every Ivy League school (by at least 50%) and every NESCAC school except Bates, Trinity, and Conn College, none of which are need-blind. Also poorer than Vassar, Swarthmore, Oberlin, Grinnell, and Haverford. Wesleyan may be one of the wealthier schools in the country, but if you look at the list of need-blind schools, Wesleyan is poorer than practically every single one. As I said, the endowment money is simply not there. Simple as that.</p>
<p>Edit: As anothermom2 said, endowment payouts should not exceed more than 5% per year, which is what allows them to remain and grow in perpetuity. Wesleyan, however, was spending as high as 7%, which is a no-no. That’s been rectified, but there was overspending in the past that has led to this situation.</p>
<p>I think it is very unfortunate that Wesleyan is no longer need blind. However, I think the students who would’ve gotten in still will do very well at any other school, including public ones. I guess the students who need it the very most might be hurt. I think the problem might have to do with Wesleyan’s finances; they probably haven’t been increasing their endowment as much as they need.</p>
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<p>I do not agree with the proposition that a school has to nearly go broke in order to show its moral and ethical <em>bona fides</em>.</p>
<p>Children from poorer families are already disadvantaged as compared to ones from wealthier ones. For Wesleyan to further disadvantage those from poorer families is shameful. </p>
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<p>Wesleyan is not further disadvantaging anyone … they are still accepting and giving aid to many. They are not cutting out aid, and they are not saying they are completely doing away with need blind admission … just at the tail end of the admissions process.</p>
<p>I firmly believe that Wesleyan can do whatever it wants. I think most colleges are overpriced AND many are also extremely generous. No college owes anyone anything. It is a privilege to get financial aid.</p>
<p>I am glad that Wesleyan is being transparent.</p>
<p>Whatever aid budget is set by the school, it does no one any good for a school to accept applicants knowing that there is absolutely no way for them to attend, or for them to be able to attend only if their family is able to obtain huge loans.</p>
<p>Especially when all of the students in the pool of applicants are well qualified, it makes sense to spread around the dollars that are available to benefit the greatest number of students. A school like Wesleyan will certainly still choose to fully fund some attractive full need students, and also choose to partially fund more attractive applicants with some need.</p>
<p>In addition to doing what they did (which I applaud), the best thing they can do is cut costs (of which I am sure there are lots of $$ to cut without sacrificing school academics). That will make Wes cheaper for everyone, and their yearly grants and scholarships can be spread among more students. There is NO real good reason for a school to cost $60K per year.</p>
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<p>There was a lot to cut when the recession took place. $30 million of the budget was cut, but there isn’t much left to cut (except maybe some administrators) without affecting academics at this point. </p>
<p>Not including auxiliary services, it’s a $182 million budget. Instruction/academics (includes library budget, professor salaries, etc.) makes up $75 million, financial aid is another $54 million. $17 million to public safety and maintaining the physical plant (it should be noted Wes has $42 million of deferred maintenance - maintenance that should have been performed and hasn’t). $7 million on research. The last $30 million is student services, external relations, and institutional support.</p>
<p>You can’t cut professor salaries (Wes is below the mean of its peer group) nor financial aid. Wes is already behind on campus maintenance, and you can’t cut research. The last $30 million is a little unclear for its purpose, but I’d imagine it includes fundraising support, publicity, and the career center services, as well as dining and residential life. Not things you want to be cutting. Athletics makes up $3 million, but Wes has to spend what other NESCAC schools do to stay competitive, and that’s the going rate. </p>
<p>Small residential liberal arts education is expensive. If you want a cheap education, go to a large state school. It’s a luxury education, and it doesn’t come cheap. It’s great that these schools offer such great financial aid, but these schools aren’t in the business of doing education cheaply. Small LACs by nature are inefficient.</p>
<p>I’m not saying there isn’t anything to cut, but rather, the maximum you can do at this point is trim a bit.</p>
<p>Every school, even Harvard, has a budget that it has to meet. Even though Harvard is need blind and has extremely generous need-aid and has more money than any other school, they do a lot of things to make sure they stay within their budget. </p>
<p>For example, they admit lots of kids from private schools (35% of Harvard’s class vs. 8% nationally). They also admit lots of Harvard legacies (30% admission rate vs. 8% overall). And then they take kids ED. </p>
<p>While all those admits are qualified, those over-represented demographics reduce the number of admits that will need aid.</p>
<p>Wow, SM34 that was quite a summary. Btw, where did you get the numbers on athletics? I thought that was a closely guarded secret. ;)</p>