<p>We live in an increasingly global world. All of these schools have also made a huge effort to increase international interest given the decline of the American college aged population. Do we really only want representation by wealthy internationals or to saddle these kids with huge loans when the hope is they may go back and do good in the third world in many cases?</p>
<p>My son is at Amherst and his summer earnings expectation was raised last year, but it was not raised unreasonably. What it meant was that about 75% of what he earned went back to the college instead of 65%. I have no problem with that, nor did he. It will go up again this summer, but even if all his summer earnings go to the college it is a small exchange for the generosity of their financial aid.</p>
<p>We’ll see what the future brings.</p>
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<p>What is wrong with cutting the athletic budget (biggest in DIVIII) by more than 3.5% before you cut financial aid by 6%? Heck, times are tough. Cut football.</p>
<p>What is wrong with cutting the new library to replace the library that was built since I graduated from Williams? I know everyone thinks the current library is ugly, but good lord, with unemployement approaching nearly 20%, maybe Biffy and Buffy could make do with a library that’s a little scruffier than a luxury hotel for a while. That could be $5 million a year in bond interest cost. </p>
<p>What is wrong with cutting the January Winter Study program? Most of the students and faculty view Winter Study as a joke academically. You could get a 10% to 20% faculty savings by replace Winter Study teaching expecations with an increases semester load, not to menion large savings in energy costs and so forth. The country is hurting. There are worse sacrifices than giving up three weeks of skiing.</p>
<p>It’s a zero sum game now.</p>
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<p>You haven’t seen the increase yet. The decision to increase summer earnings by an average of $1700 per aid student wasn’t made until the Board approved the budget package in August.</p>
<p>Interesteddad:
Your suggestions are more in line with Swarthmore’s studentbody culture than they are appropriate for Williams College. Football & the January term are very important to an isolated athletic school such as Williams. If January term is viewed as a joke, then it is probably primarily the faculty’s fault. One course that meets five to seven days a week for a month should not be a joke. What a great opportunity to travel abroad without interrupting your normal undergraduate degree progression.
About a year ago you posted a video of Swarthmore College kids at a party where some of the students came in costume as diseases & very unathletic boys danced on tables clapping their hands over their heads. This presents a very different campus culture from that of Williams College which tends to be athletic, preppy & highly intelligent. The world needs both types of schools & has plenty.
Basically I interpret your advice to Williams College as suggesting that now is the time for financial panic so let’s cancel the building plans and change the culture of the school so that it becomes another Swarthmore College. Well, just try to get that many effeminate male students to rural Massachusetts. It just won’t happen & it shouldn’t happen. And I do not mean to offend anyone regardless of sexual orientation. I am basing my last comment off of your video, visits to Swarthmore & a prior edition of the conservative college guide Chosing the Right College which detailed some highly offensive, childish practices that have occured at Swarthmore College. Which is fine for Swarthmore College but has no place at Williams, Colgate, St. Lawrence, Bucknell & similiar schools. Swarthmore is more akin to Wesleyan, Oberlin, grinnell & Reed in many respects</p>
<p>Try to enlarge the lens to consider not just what it means to a student, but what it means to the college community to backtrack on middleclass no-loans policy.</p>
<p>One point made to the Amherst community when no-loans/middle class was announced around 2006/07 was this: at that moment, only 14% of Amherst’s student population was middle class, so unrepresentative of the U.S. population. </p>
<p>The same letter from President Tony Marx, which I recall here, made the point that expecting unduly heavy debt after graduation cramps a mid-class student’s choice of major and career. Amherst did not want to see that impact. </p>
<p>I believe: It benefits an LAC to level the playing field in this way, enabling students to engage more freely with academic departments. If an institution wants all students to engage equally in what an LAC does best – explore many departments, gain a liberal arts undergraduate foundation, choose a major based on authentic interests – then someone from a 3-bedroom bungalow should have as much confidence declaring a Classics major as someone born into a l0-bedroom mansion. </p>
<p>At the same time, it’s interesting to meet international students whose backgrounds include parents who are schoolteacher and farmers, not just business moguls.</p>
<p>Very tough choices.</p>
<p>Winter Study is such a great feature of Williams. I agree that the school has way too much of an emphasis on athletics.</p>
<p>The no-loan policy (at whatever school) was a heck of a deal. I, too, wish they would sacrifice in international support a la Xiggi or new development a la library before cutting financial aid. I’ve always thought the Staffords should be skin in the game for every finaid stuent. I suspect now that one school has bit the bullet others may follow…</p>
<p>I find it somewhat disconcerting that the first call to the fire is the athletic budget, but not music, art or theater. I think it would be interesting to create athletic endowments that fully endow either a specific sport or the department in general. Why don’t schools do this? I would guess it’s because the largest and most consistent of alumni giving comes from this particular group of alums. Of course, you’d have to confirm this thru their institutional giving offices. According to the Williams website, “Roughly half of Williams students participate in either varsity, JV or some formal club team.” I think it’s not surprising that Williams, and other school’s with the same level of involvement, are somewhat loathe to bite the hand that feeds them. Certainly, I can’t say this for certain, but it makes sense to me. I have a feeling those annual giving numbers for the college would be down even further than they are now.</p>
<p>I do, however, find it curious that they are claiming to remain need blind for international students, especially when their numbers have remained surprisingly consistent both in students enrolled and the amount of aid distributed. Frankly, I think it’s time we revisited the idea of the need blind process and question whether these schools truly operate on a need blind vs one-eye open process.</p>
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<p>Oh, I’m well aware of that. That’s why I said that the good thing about zero sum budgeting is that we all get to see the institutional priorities that define a college. It’s pretty clear when a college cuts financial aid and leaves the largest DIVIII athletic budget pretty much unscathed.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Winter Study. It’s a recent tradition, started in the 1960s if I recall. It’s been largely a joke since the inception. Very few colleges jumped on that fad. I guess the concept – dabbling in something whimsical – is good on paper. At $50,000 a year in the middle of a global reception, I reckon I could have probably come up with better ways to spend dad’s money than studying “the blues” and skiing. It would be hard to argue that Winter Study is preserving “the core academic mission”. I just don’t think anyone ever seriously considered the axe.</p>
<p>The summer earnings expectation always rose from year to year, but last summer we did see an increase that was higher than the normal, published increase we had been expecting. I assumed that was a nudge up on the previous amount as one of the many adjustments the college was making. We’ll see. I’m pretty philosophical about it. No matter what they do, they’ve been just amazing so far.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t advocate cutting any single thing in a draconian way (not a sport, not arts, not aid for internationals). They all make important contributions to the college. It’s a hard call all around.</p>
<p>I do think all students - even those with rich daddies - should have some of their own skin in the game.</p>
<p>My issue with the cut is that there are no clean cut rules to coincide. I like rules.<br>
Tell me you expect every student to first take Federal Loans before anything else is offered - Fine. Tell me at what point the FAFSA or CSS bottom number matches the schools number. Give me, a middle class mom, some idea as to how to budget for college and what colleges are a fincial reality for my kids BEFORE they fall in love, write a zillion essays, etc.</p>
<p>I just went back and looked at the approved budget cuts for Amherst. I overstated their summer earnings increase. I read a “$1.5 million” savings as an annual number at the end of the three year phase in. Looking at the table they provided, it is clear this is a cumulative number. **The actual annual increase in summer earnings (and other fianancial aid reductions) is $670,000 per year. This works out to between $750 - $800 per year per average financial aid student. **Some of this increase was phased in last summer with another bump coming next summer.</p>
<p>This average $750 to $800 decrease in finanancial aid grants at Amherst is more in keeping with the $600 a year average adjustment Swarthmore has put in their financial aid budget. Both are much lower than the $2000 per aid student that Williams is looking for with the elmination of the no-loan policy.</p>
<p>Here’s Amherst’s budget cutting recommendations approved by their board in August:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf</a></p>
<p>Here’s Swarthmore’s budget cutting recommendations, approved by their board in December:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/finance_investment_office/approved_budget_adjustment_Dec09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/finance_investment_office/approved_budget_adjustment_Dec09.pdf</a></p>
<p>I agree with Rentof2. I think it’s hard all around, although I would also agree with Interesteddad wondering why it seems more reasonable to tear down a building less than 35 years old to build something entirely new.</p>
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<p>This was the objective, but in truth I don’t think that was accomplished with no loan policies. Purely anecdotal, but from what I’ve observed from reading here and getting to know my kids’ friends, most kids at top schools see them as tickets to riches and upper mobility, and it is still the trust fund kids in large part who feel free to be comp lit majors.</p>
<p>Significantly cut sports at Williams or many top schools? Never happen! If it does, there would be far fewer FA dollars as alum go ballistic. In fact, the ivies are undergoing an initiative to raise the quality of their sports programs. More spirit, more money.</p>
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<p>That cuts both ways. In alumni surveys, one of only two areas of dissatisfaction among Williams alumni is the school’s over-prioritization of athletics. The other is “too much spent on alumni fundraising”.</p>
<p>Of course, that will change as the percentage of alumni from the jock-era at Williams (which began in the 1980s) increases.</p>
<p>I just think, given the comparative size of Williams’ athletic budget, a 3.5% cut is rather anemic. I still believe that the athletic director must have compromising photos of somebody.</p>
<p>^^so true re: sports. Sports are so intertwined with history and the American education system, the healthy minds/healthy bodies spirit. That said, colleges/unis have been known to cut their lesser funded more esoteric sports in times of need or move some to “club” status. My oldest son’s college did that and the alumni howled in pain and did manage to raise an endowment to keep it going for at least three more years.</p>
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<p>Now this is funny. (and probs true!)</p>
<p>Do you think that other LACs (Bowdoin, Amherst, Middlebury) will follow? I’m afraid to apply to Williams now that it is no longer no-loan. I’m in a low income family (~40,000 a year) and if I got into Williams, I was depending on the no loan policy. Otherwise, there’s no way that I’d be able to pay 50,000 a year. How much do you think they’ll ask me (if I got in) to take out now?</p>
<p>@hmom5, Re: impact of heavy debt repayment upon graduation on mid-class kids choice of majors/careers:</p>
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<p>Insufficient data to compute. Where’s the longterm study from changes made as recently as 2006/07? All they know is it helped increase middleclass applications and they responded with acceptances to balance the class better. </p>
<p>Program hasn’t even started before it’s being quashed? </p>
<p>I do appreciate that you point out your stories from kids’ friends are anecdotal; that’s fair.</p>