Kinda Makes Me Wonder

Maybe I Was Too Hasty ...

With regard to the question I posed in my last blog, maybe the answer I offered was too absolute.

Of Harvard (and now Yale, Dartmouth and a few other colleges) revamping financial aid for students from families whose income falls within a certain amount (middle to upper-middle class), Bryn Mawr dean of admissions and financial aid Jenny Rickard said:

Harvard has started to redefine the financial aid landscape, and it’s redefined it in a way that is quite beneficial to the wealthiest institutions … It is just a handful of schools that can really respond this way, but it leaves others kind of pulling their hair.

Some officials, in particular at the colleges that don’t have $35 billion in endowments, say there will now be pressure to provide more aid to wealthy high achievers, thereby reducing the amount available to poorer students. They also predict that the number of low-income applications would decline. Dr. Donald E. Heller, the Director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University, said that those applications would just get “crowded out.”

I smell fear.

Fear that universities would have to use more of their endowments just to try to compete with the Ivy Leagues (only an average of 5 percent of the endowment is used by schools for scholarship and financial aid annually). Senior Republican on the State Finance Committee, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, has recently suggested that colleges be required to spend more of their endowments as a condition of keeping their tax-exempt status. Concurrently, a bill was approved by the House Education and Labor Committee that would “seek to shame, by listing publicly, those colleges that raise tuition significantly faster than their peers.”

But at least that fear incites action. Maybe not from the schools as of yet, but the government (yes – our government) is taking heed:

New York State Senator Kenneth P. Lavalle head of the Senate Higher Education Committee, plans on introducing legislation that would provide enough state aid to limit to 10 percent the amount of income that a middle-class family would have to pay for college. Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York has also recently proposed selling part of the state’s lottery business in order to create a $4 billion endowment for public universities (which is still less than the $5.7 billion growth in Harvard’s endowment just last year – and would be distributed to more students)

Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, proposes that in order for other schools to compete and attract students, they must build a larger endowment.

Easy enough? Or maybe schools should appropriate more than 5 percent of their endowments to financial aid. Now that was easy.

Oh, and by the way, Northeastern's report card grade for last year ... please pay attention to the failures:

Follow that Trend! We Can't Afford Not to ...

These Ivy League universities represent a few of the wealthiest education institutions in the world. It’s about time they start utilizing their assets, and do exactly what they are revered for: being trailblazers in the academic frontier.

It all started with Harvard. But doesn’t it always?

Harvard University announced in December 2007 a plan that would extensively increase financial aid to students from families whose annual income range from $120,000 to $180,000. To those students, university annual cost would be limited to about 10 percent of their families’ income (a maximum cost being $18,000).

However, let us not forget that an admitted student from a family earning $60,000 or less attends the university virtually free of charge.

Only weeks after Harvard announced its plan to increase financial aid, Yale unveiled a plan of its own. The changes, expected to be put in effect in the fall, would increase spending of university endowments by $24 million, to more than $80 million. In addition, Yale said it would limit the increase in tuition, room and board to 2.2 percent. The increases have been more than double that percentage in the last five years.

Richard C. Levin, president of Yale, said that on average, students who receive financial aid will see their charges drop in half.

Dartmouth College, though probably having the smallest bank account in comparison to other Ivy League institutions, is also doing its part. The college announced that starting in the fall, students from families with incomes below $75,000 will receive free tuition. Furthermore, loans will be replaced with scholarships. James Wright, the college president, said:

“The college has long been committed to helping superbly qualified students attend Dartmouth, regardless of their financial means, and financial aid has been a personal priority of mine for many years …Building on our more than threefold increase in financial aid since 1998, I am pleased that we could make this further enhancement to our financial aid program as we seek to keep Dartmouth affordable and to enroll the most talented students from around the world.”

And he ain’t lying. In 1998, financial aid cost Dartmouth 24.5 million. Last year, the cost was a staggering $61 million.

So where does that leave the rest of the academic population? You know, the students who come from families that fit the economic criteria, but not the academic? Are their options that of attending a state school for its affordability, or amass a debt by attending a private university, whose endowments pale in comparison? (ahem, Northeastern).

To my understanding, yes.

In the Absence of Logic ...

In President Bush’s State of the Union, addressed late last month, he proposed a new program called Pell Grants for Kids. Essentially, $300 million in tax dollars would be allotted to low-income parents to help send their children to private or religious schools.

A similar federally financed “scholarship” is already in existence in Washington. Initiated in 2003, it has provided more than $14 million a year for low-income students to attend private and religious schools.

Of the proposed program, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said:

“The president didn’t commit the resources to expand education opportunity … Instead, on top of a $70 billion shortfall in funding for his own education reforms, he again proposed to siphon scarce resources from our public schools to create new voucher programs.”

While I see the program as an honorable attempt at giving low-income children better education opportunities, it validates the inefficiency and downright failure of public schools. With that, why not use the $300 millio to distribute to public schools across the nation? – thereby benefitting more than just a few.

Even though it may advance a select fortunate few, the program would inevitably leave too many behind, proving also the failure of another Bush initiative.