Student Loan Blog : grants

Montana Senator: Give Tax Break to Companies That Pay Off Employees’ Student Loans

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Roy Brown, a Montana state senator and candidate for governor, would like to reward companies that repay their employees’ student loans with a tax break, reported the Great Falls Tribune (“Brown Says Companies Could Help With Student Loans,” Aug. 6, 2008).

The senator says that his plan would offer an incentive for Montana students to remain in state and could help keep them from becoming overwhelmed by high student loan payments.

As another way of encouraging Montana students to attend a state school, Brown also proposes allowing Montana high school graduates with a 3.7 GPA or better to attend a public college or university free of charge. These education grants would be funded by a portion of the interest income from the Coal Severance Trust Fund.

“It is absolutely critical,” says Sen. Brown, outlining this proposal and others on the higher education page of his website, “that the most affordable place for a Montana student to pursue their higher educational goals is right here, in their home state.”

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New Higher-Ed Bill May Get Through Congress This Week

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:54:00 GMT

Five years overdue, the House and the Senate may finally reach a compromise on the re-authorized Higher Education Act, the law that predominantly governs student aid, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“With Compromises, Higher-Ed Bill Could Move Through Congress This Week,” July 28, 2008).

If the bill makes it out of the House education committee, it would then have to get a majority vote in both the full House and Senate before the bill is sent to the president, which legislators hope to do before Congress breaks for its August recess next week.

Legislators, however, must first agree on two major sticking points: how to structure a new program that would provide graduate education grants to schools that enroll a large number of African American students, and whether states should be penalized if they reduce the amount of funds they allocate for higher education in their annual budgets.

Legislators Close to Resolution on Two Main Issues

On July 25, legislators said that they had come to an agreement on the graduate grant-program provision. Under the negotiated agreement, both predominately black institutions with at least 40 percent black student enrollment, and historically black institutions will be able to benefit from the new grant program. However, the grant will be distributed under two separate programs, one for historically black colleges and universities and one for predominantly black institutions.

Legislators are still negotiating a provision that would require states to increase spending on higher education each year over the next five years.

Although Congress may come to an agreement on the various tenets on the bill before its August recess, if legislators fail to resolve these issues this week, the bill won’t be revisited until after the November presidential election.

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Senator Pushes Colleges for Enhanced Oversight of Funded Research and Endowments

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:57:00 GMT

Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, wants colleges to be held more accountable in both their academic research and their endowment spending, according to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Sen. Grassley Pressures Universities on Science Conflicts and Financial Aid,” July 25, 2008).

In an exclusive interview with the Chronicle, Grassley said the National Institutes of Health should revoke any of the grants it awards to scientists if a researcher fails to report a conflict of interest with her or his institution. The senator has singled out several institutions of higher education, including Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of Cincinnati, after his office determined that some scientists at these schools had not fully reported their own financial interests in research projects supported by the NIH, as research institutions are required to do by law.

Grassley has asked 20 other colleges and universities to provide details about possible financial conflicts of interest between university researchers and the NIH.

Colleges Need to Direct More of Their Endowment Funds Toward Financial Aid

The senator has also criticized academic institutions with large endowments for spending too little on financial aid for disadvantaged students. The senator recently asked 136 schools to specify how they spend their endowment income.

Institutions that responded indicated that much of these endowments comes from donors who have earmarked their financial gifts for purposes other than financial aid. The senator said he wasn’t persuaded by the argument and noted that he may still pursue legislation that would require universities to spend as much as 5 percent of their endowments each year, although he hopes such a requirement won’t be necessary.

Grassley stated that he may not sponsor such legislation if more schools begin voluntarily following the example set by some of the nation’s elite institutions that began funneling more of their endowment funds to student financial aid packages earlier this year.

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Colleges and Universities to Subsidize Unpaid Internships

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:08:00 GMT

Some small, private schools are beginning to offer internship grants to students who would otherwise have been unable to accept an unpaid or low-paying intern position, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Subsidizing the Internship,” July 18, 2008).

“That’s one of the more important aspects of career assistance that a university can provide a student,” said Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault, a career-information company. Amid so many unpaid and low- paying internships, he told the Chronicle, “the university can come to the rescue financially.”

Once considered an added bonus to a college degree, internships have now become “a prime form of professional capital” for college students. But being that most internships offer little to no financial compensation, lower-income students are often placed at a disadvantage in the competitive internship field.

Internship-grant programs now being offered by schools across the country will subsidize unpaid or low-paying internships and allow more financially needy students to take advantage of these experience-building opportunities:

Connecticut College awarded up to $3,000 grants to two- thirds, or 285, college seniors
Austin College in Texas gave 54 students $2,300 each
Whitman College in Washington paid 26 students $2,100
Smith College in Massachusetts has pledged financial support for all internship-seeking students, regardless of their financial need

American University in Washington, D.C., while unable to offer direct financial assistance for internships, provides room and board for Native American students who secure internships at federal agencies or private corporations.

Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind., offers on-campus housing at a subsidized rate for summer interns through the Brain Gain program, as well as career counseling for those who participate in the program.

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College Offers Students a No-Cost, No-Student-Loan Education With Funds From Its $1.1 Billion Endowment

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:39:00 GMT

Berea College is drawing the attention of lawmakers for its no-frills approach to education and its free tuition policy.

The private Kentucky college — founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers” — accepts only applicants from low-income families and charges no tuition, according to an article in The New York Times (“With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice,” July 21, 2008).

Every Berea student is awarded a four-year tuition scholarship and the school doesn't offer student loans.

School Spends Endowment on Students, Not on High-End Amenities

Despite its $1.1 billion endowment Berea, unlike other colleges with large endowments, has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs, or rock climbing walls. Students eat food from the college’s own farm, make the furniture used to furnish the school, and are required to work 10 hours a week in an on-campus job.

Although Berea keeps costs down with its streamlined approach to higher education, without tuition revenue to supplement its funding, Berea relies on endowment income to cover 80 percent of its $43 million education and general budget, and about two-thirds of its $55 million operating budget.

“You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free,” says Joseph Bagnoli, the school’s associate provost for enrollment management. “We call it the best education money can’t buy.”

A Push to Use Endowments for the Public Good

News of Berea’s unusual approach to higher education is spurring debates about whether the nation’s wealthiest universities are doing enough for the general public to warrant their tax-exempt status, or if they’re simply hoarding money to serve an elite few, writes New York Times reporter Tamar Lewin.

In January, the Senate Finance Committee requested detailed endowment and spending data from the 136 colleges and universities with endowments of at least $500 million, with an eye toward possibly forcing them to spend at least 5 percent of their assets each year, as foundations are required to do.

Dozens of wealthy colleges have since increased their financial aid to low- and middle-income students, in some cases, replacing loans with grants. More than three-quarters of the students at Berea already receive Pell Grants.

“You see some of these selective liberal arts colleges building new physical education facilities with these huge sheets of glass and these coffee and juice bars, and charging students $40,000 a year, and you have to ask, does this contribute to the public good, or is it just a way for the college to keep up with the Jones?” says Berea’s president Larry Shinn.

He adds, “We are a tax-exempt institution, so I think the public has a right to demand that out educational mission be at the heart of our expenditures.”

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Some Students Could Get Boost in Financial Aid This Summer

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:46:00 GMT

This year, college students who are still struggling to get the money they need to pay for school may be able to take advantage of a phenomenon, colleges and universities refer to as the “summer melt” — the phase where students make last-minute decisions not to attend a school because of high tuition costs.

When that happens, schools are under extra pressure to fill their freshmen classes and may offer students more financial aid, according to an Associated Press article (“Students Can Find Aid, Even at Last Minute,” July 6, 2008).

“The later in the year we get, the more valuable each student becomes and the harder they are to replace,” said Lynn Nichelson, director of financial aid at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. “The quality student is in demand all over the place.”

Before ruling out a school because of costs, experts recommend that students contact their financial aid office to discuss additional financial aid options. Some evidence suggests that, as more colleges and universities are doing away with their early-decision programs, schools have been more willing to offer students more money in grants, student loans, and scholarships in order to keep their enrollment numbers up.

But parent Debbie Bloss, whose son attends Drury University in Missouri, says you really have to do your homework.

“It’s a lot of work, and it’s painful because there’s a lot of reading, a lot of investigating, a lot of understanding involved,” she said. “And the key is finding someone in the financial aid office who’s willing to take the time to help you get all that you can get.”

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Harvard Professor Urges Students to Consider Public Service Over Wall Street

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:53:00 GMT

A Harvard University education professor is challenging undergraduates at elite colleges to forgo high-paying consulting and finance jobs, for careers in public service.

The professor, Howard Gardner, is leading seminars at Harvard and, Amherst College in Massachusetts, and Colby College in Maine, to encourage undergraduates to reflect more seriously on the connection between their education and their aspirations, according to an article in The New York Times (“Big Paycheck or Service? Students Are Put to Test,” June 23, 2008).

“Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?” Gardner asks.

Gardner’s question has college officials at these schools contemplating whether too many of their top students, some of whom might otherwise choose to enter professions that aren’t measured by financial success, are choosing money over their ideals.

“We’re in the business of graduating people who will make the world better in some way,” says Anthony Marx, president of Amherst College. “That’s what justifies the expense of the education.”

Corporate Jobs Hold Big Appeal for College Graduates With Student Loans

Some universities, like Amherst, Harvard, Tufts University, and the University of Pennsylvania, are so concerned about corporate America’s hold over new graduates, that they have expanded their public service fellowship and internship programs.

This year Tufts announced it would pay off college loans for graduates who choose to work in the public-service sector. And officials at Harvard, Penn, Amherst, and a number of other colleges tell the Times that one reason they have begun offering financial aid packages that offer more grant money than student loans, is so their students don’t feel pressured to pursue lucrative careers just to be able to pay off their college debt.

While colleges and universities are taking steps to give graduates more freedom in choosing a career path by offering expanded financial aid, some students still prefer the safe, financially secure route.

Akshay Ganju, who wanted to become a doctor when he enrolled at Harvard four years ago, recently accepted a full-time job with Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. The generous salary, he says, will make it possible for him to pay off his college loans.

“I don’t think the point of our education is to make us rich,” Ganju said. “We all feel we want to do something meaningful beyond just accumulating wealth.”

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States Increase Financial Aid Funding for Student Loans and Grants

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:29:00 GMT

State spending on financial aid for undergraduates increased 6 percent or by a total of $9.3 billion in 2006-07 academic year, after growth slowed to 3.4 percent during the 2005–06 academic year, according to a recent report by the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs.

States spent the majority of their financial-aid funds, or $5.29 billion, on need-based grants and student loans for undergraduates this year.

However, state spending on non-need-based aid for undergraduate students has eclipsed the amount of money states have devoted to need-based aid over the past decade, increasing 5.6 percent during 2006–07 to $2.08 billion, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (“States Spend More on Student Aid,” June 27, 2008).

Funding for student loans received the biggest jump in state spending this year, by nearly 29 percent or $653 million, following a 17-percent increase in spending between the 2004–05 and 2005–06 academic years, according to NASSGAP data.

The report listed South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia as the top spenders in grant-aid, per capita, for their 18-to-24-year-old population in the 2006-07 academic year.

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Medical Institute Awards $600 Million to 56 Biomedical Scientists

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:25:00 GMT

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest sources of private funds for biomedical research, named 56 of the nation’s most gifted biomedical scientists as HHMI “investigators” this week (“HHMI Selects 56 of the Nation’s Top Scientists,” May 27, 2008).

HHMI investigators, who maintain faculty positions at universities and other research institutions, are scientists who embody the HHMI commitment to discovery, research, innovation, and to “extend[ing] the boundaries of science.” Previous appointees include 124 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 12 Nobel Prize winners.

HHMI honored 42 men and 14 women from 31 different institutions, with seven organizations gaining HHMI investigators for the first time: the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, Boston University, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cornell University, Purdue University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin.

HHMI selected its new investigators from among 1,070 applicants — researchers who had four to 10 years’ experience as faculty members at institutions across the country — in a nationwide competition that began in 2007.

In their first term of appointment, this year’s honorees will collectively receive more than $600 million to cover salaries, benefits, research funds, and other expenses. And because the HHMI philosophy is to support individuals as opposed to a specific course of research — to appoint investigators rather than award research grants — these investigators will be given the flexibility and financing to explore evolving ideas, to change the direction of their research if necessary, and to complete the course of their investigation, even if it takes many years.

“These 56 scientists will bring new and innovative ways of thinking about biology to the HHMI community,” said Thomas R. Cech, president of HHMI. “They are poised to advance scientific knowledge dramatically in the coming years, and we are committed to providing them with the freedom and flexibility to do so.”

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Stanford School of Medicine Won't Follow Harvard's or Yale's Financial Aid Initiatives

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:04:00 GMT

Students at the Stanford School of Medicine will not be offered the same type of tuition breaks students attending rival medical schools Harvard and Yale will see next year.

Harvard Medical School and the Yale School of Medicine recently announced they are eliminating the expected family contribution for households that earn less $120,000 and $100,000, respectively.

Charles Prober, Stanford’s senior associate dean of medical student education, told The Stanford Daily that there are no plans to extend such an offer to Stanford medical students (“No Change in Store for Med School Aid,” May 5, 2008).

Stanford a Leader in Minimizing Medical Students Loan Debt

However, he pointed out that Stanford is already a leader in medical school affordability. Stanford graduates have less student loan debt than those who graduate from competing schools, he said. Stanford’s 2007 graduating class had a debt of $78,000 in student loans, compared to $98,953 at Harvard and $115,385 at Yale.

The median medical school debt is $140,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Stanford also sets a cap on the amount of federal student loans that can be borrowed each year, which this year is $13,500. If students have remaining tuition costs after the estimated parental contribution is determined, the school covers up to $30,000 of a student’s remaining costs with a need-based grant.

Student Loans Aren’t the Only Option

Students must cover any remaining costs with private student loans or other sources but Stanford, Prober said, offers its students a number of alternatives to student loans.

Medical students can earn up to $72,000 in Stanford’s Medical Scholars research Program by doing health-related research projects. Students can also offset their tuition costs by working as teaching assistants, a job in which they can earn about $18,000 per quarter. After 13 quarters, Stanford drops its tuition costs by 80 percent.

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Lowest-Income Students Need More Pell Aid, Authors of New Report Find

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:35:00 GMT

To help low-income students attend college, larger Pell Grants should be awarded to the most “financially needy” college students, according to a new report (“Window of Opportunity: Targeting Federal Grant Aid to Students With the Lowest Incomes”).

In the report, researchers from the Institute For Higher Education Policy urged lawmakers to increase Pell Grant aid by up to $750 for students who have an expected family contribution (or EFC) that is a negative number. Currently, such students are awarded the same Pell amount as students whose EFC is zero.

The report’s authors concluded that raising the minimum and maximum Pell Grant awards could provide additional aid to the neediest students while ensuring that students with family incomes bordering the eligibility cutoff do not lose their awards.

The proposal to raise Pell Grant awards is gaining traction in the U.S. Senate, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Report Calls for Directing Federal Aid to Neediest Students,” April 28, 2008).

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is backing a proposed measure to boost Pell aid to the lowest-income students as part of a broader bill aimed at dealing with the effects of the credit crunch on the student loan industry.

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Wilkes University Puts Freshman Recruits Front and Center and Billboard-Size

Student Loan Girl — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:56:00 GMT

Wilkes University, a small, private school in northeastern Pennsylvania, is using a quirky new in-your-face $120,000 ad campaign to get the attention of today’s media- and marketing-savvy students.

The university is plastering personalized messages on billboards, pizza boxes, gas pumps, and even on MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central to students it wants to make a part of its freshman class, reports Michael Rubinkam in a story by The Associated Press (“Pennsylvania College Woos Students by Putting Them in Ads,” April 30, 2008).

The “trendsetting and forward-thinking” marketing campaign appeals to the “look-at-me generation,” teens comfortable sharing all-things-personal on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, says Nancy Costopulos, chief marketing officer of the American Marketing Association.

The Message: Personalized and Not for the Shy

Wilkes features applicants in its ads who have a “mix of talents and determination” and who live in markets where the university wants to promote itself, says Jack Chielli, the school’s director of marketing. Students must also consent to having their names used.

The ads, writes Rubinkam, are meant “to convey the message that the school gets to know its students personally and pays close attention to their needs.”

To get messages with the right personal touch, 160over90, the Philadelphia marketing firm contracted by Wilkes, interviews participating students and their friends and families, uncovering likes, dislikes, hobbies, nicknames.

The agency uses the information it gleans from these in-depth interviews to design the highly personalized ads that have turned some college-bound seniors into quasi-celebrities in their high schools and communities:

“Lake Lehman senior Greg Heindel: You give your time at the soup kitchen, the firehouse, and your church summer camp. Wilkes University would like to give you something — a top-quality education.”
“Hey Kristen Pecka. Only your closest friends at Central Catholic call you Pecka-lecka-lecka. Choose Wilkes University and add 2,362 more people to that list.”
“Scranton High senior Nicole Pollock: Our goal at Wilkes University is to be as much a mentor as your mother has been. (Now, if we could only make her ravioli.)”

Each ad includes an invitation to “call a Colonel” (the school’s mascot) and provides a phone number that plays a recorded message from a current Wilkes student.

It’s the Thought That Counts

Even if targeted recruits end up choosing another school, says Chielli, he considers the ads successful as long as they continue to grab attention and get other students to think about Wilkes.

But besides drawing more students to apply, the school wants to help make it possible for them to actually attend: Nearly all students receive some form of financial aid apart from student loans to help cover the $25,000 price tag. Wilkes awards $22 million in financial aid each year.

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The New Financial Aid Landscape

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:41:00 GMT

In the last few months, the media has been drawn to the potential student loan crisis, focusing on how students will be able to weather accessibility issues to get the funds they need for college next fall.

At the same time, many of the country’s top colleges and universities have been revamping their financial aid programs to better assist parents and students in covering their college costs.

Schools Modifying Financial Aid Programs

To date, about 50 schools have made substantial changes to their financial aid programs, writes Anne Marie Chaker of The Wall Street Journal (“The New Math of College Financing,” April 21, 2008).

Several schools have chosen to replace student loans with grant money that won’t need to be repaid, effectively lowering their tuition. Others have waived tuition costs altogether for families that fall below a specific income. Some have capped the amount of money a family is required to contribute toward college costs at a certain percentage of the family’s yearly income.

Student Loans Being Replaced with Grants

Undergraduates attending Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard, M.I.T., Yale, or Cornell next fall now have a better chance of graduating with less debt from student loans, thanks to a significant shift in the financial aid programs at these schools.

Under pressure from Congress, with legislators questioning growing student debt levels and skyrocketing tuition costs that outpace inflation even as the wealthiest schools report endowments of $500 million or more, colleges and universities with sizeable endowments are tapping into those endowments to replace student loans with grants in their financial aid awards.

Although Harvard is using grant awards to eliminate student loans from its financial aid packages entirely, other schools are reserving these loan-replacement grants for families at qualifying income levels, Chaker notes.

Cornell, for example, in the 2009–10 academic year, will only replace student loans with grants for families making less than $75,000 annually. (The threshold was $60,000 for the current school year.) Students from families earning between $75,000 and $120,000 a year may still be awarded student loans, but those loans will be capped at $3,000 for 2009–10.

Tuition Waivers for Middle-Income Families

A handful of the nation’s top schools have also implemented programs that eliminate tuition charges completely for middle-income and even upper-middle-income families, with qualifying income levels as high as $100,000.

At M.I.T. and Dartmouth, families who make less than $75,000 a year will be able to send their children to college at zero tuition cost (although they may still have to cover room and board, books, and other living expenses). At Stanford, the income cutoff for a tuition waiver is $100,000 (with assets typical for that income level).

Family Contribution Capped Even for $100K+ Incomes

Last year, Harvard announced “one of the most ambitious [financial aid] plans out there,” writes Chaker, allowing families earning between $120,000 and $180,000 a year, with standard corresponding assets, to put just 10 percent of their annual income toward their child’s cost to attend — in other words, paying only between $12,000 and $18,000 of the 2008-09 sticker price of roughly $50,000.

Yale followed on Harvard’s heels with its own 10-percent policy that went even further up the income bracket, applying to families who make up to $200,000 a year.

As part of these new financial aid plans, both Yale and Harvard require that students contribute between $2,500 and $4,000 of their own funds, earned through a part-time or summer job or both, in addition to their parents’ 10-percent contribution.

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Medical Institute to Provide $60-Million in Science Grants to Colleges

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:52:00 GMT

On April 22, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the largest private supporter of science education in America, announced the latest batch of colleges and universities to receive a total of $60 million in funding for science education, writes Jeffrey Brainard of The Chronicle of Higher Education (“$60-Million in Grants to Help 48 Colleges Improve Science Teaching,” April 22, 2008).

This year’s 48 grantees, including some of the nation’s top colleges as well as lesser-known private institutions and non-research universities, will be awarded between $700,000 and $1.6 million each over a four-year period to improve their undergraduate biological sciences programs.

The institute’s grant program focuses on the retention of undergraduate science students, both during and following their freshman year — a time when colleges often lose a large number of their first-year students, Peter Bruns, vice president for grants and special programs at the institute, told The Chronicle.

Recipient schools are encouraged to use their grant money to develop model projects that may be adapted at peer institutions. Last fall, the institute formed the Science Education Alliance, a network of scientists and educators that develop and distribute new science education material, to help facilitate this objective.

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Harvard’s Aid to Middle-Class Families a Signal for Change

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:03:00 GMT

In December Harvard University announced it would begin offering increased financial aid to students of middle and upper-middle class families. Those families earning between $120,000 and $180,000 will only have to pay about 10 percent of their income, or no more than $18,000 of the $45,600 traditionally charged for tuition, Jonathan D. Glater of the New York Times reports (“Harvard’s Aid to Middle Class Pressures Rivals,” Dec. 29, 2007).

For a school like Harvard, with a $35 million endowment, the gesture is reasonable, and other schools have followed suit: the University of Pennsylvania, Pomona College, Swarthmore College and Haverford College. But smaller liberal arts schools are beginning to find similar cost-cutting discounts to be less than feasible.

Schools Fail to Financially Compete

Harvard’s competitors are finding that the Ivy League school’s change in financial aid policy is affecting their students as much as its own. Small, but competitive liberal arts schools have been receiving comments from concerned parents and students asking for equivalent financial aid offers.

“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,” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Bryn Mawr, Jenny Rickard, told the Times. “It’s just a handful of schools that can really respond this way, but it leaves others kind of pulling their hair.”

William D. Durden, president of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, says his school is one of the many finding it difficult to compete.

“A lot of us are going to be under huge pressure to do these things that we just can’t do,” he tells the Times.

Durden, along with other college president’s like himself, say Harvard’s move could also end up taking away financial aid opportunities from low-income students, making tuition pricing seem even more arbitrary, and causing schools to raise already increasing tuition costs to account for the additional financial assistance.

College Costs at the Heart of the Issue

Harvard officials made their decision in part because they noticed students from middle-class families were simply not applying. Although Harvard allows almost any student from a household making less than $60,000 to attend the school almost for free, Harvard’s Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons noticed that his school was missing out on some “exciting” middle and upper-middle-class students, most likely because of the school’s high price tuition.

“People were voting with their feet,” Fitzsimmons said in the Times article.

But others see Harvard’s efforts as capable of reversing admissions trends. Donald E. Heller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University, says an increase in middle-class students to Harvard could bump out lower-class students from the school’s acceptance pool.

Some of the arguments surrounding Harvard’s recent tuition discounts are turning into the chicken and the egg type discussions. While some officials have used Harvard’s move as an example of why schools need additional federal funding, others fear that parents and students will point their fingers back at the institutions arguing that they’re clearly charging too much for an education.

“It will educate those parents into thinking, ‘Eighteen thousand dollars a year is what we ought to be paying; why should we have to pay any more than that?’” the president of Ursinus College, John Strassburger, asked in the Times article.

And perhaps that’s where the real problem lies: college affordability. There’s no saying when and if college costs will ever be overhauled, but in the meantime it looks like the only people winning in this situation are those Harvard students whose families make just the right amount of money.

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