By JOSEPH BERGER
New York Times
Published: December 26, 2007

In the mid-1960s, when William R. Fitzsimmons was a student at Harvard, the college took in a freshman class of roughly 1,550, including students at Radcliffe, which it would eventually absorb. In the four decades since, the population of the United States has ballooned by two-thirds, applications to Harvard have tripled and Mr. Fitzsimmons has ascended to the job of dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard, but this year’s freshman class is only about 125 students larger than when he was a student.
That reluctance to grow has been true of many selective colleges that want to sustain their genteel scale. But with ever more students pressing at their gates, admissions officers find themselves having to reject what Anthony W. Marx, Amherst’s president, calls “astonishing applicants.”
The most elite institutions are accepting historic lows of 10 percent of applicants, and next year the sieve should become excruciatingly finer with applications from baby boomers’ offspring expected to crest. At least four of the nation’s most exclusive institutions — Princeton, Yale, Stanford and Amherst — are either modestly expanding enrollments for the first time since the late 1960s (when some began admitting women) or have task forces studying the matter.
For example, Princeton started gradually increasing its freshman classes in 2005, aiming to increase its undergraduate population by 500 students to an enrollment of 5,200 by the fall of 2012. And Stanford, with 6,759 undergraduates, not many more than the 6,571 it had 20 years ago, has appointed a task force to study expansion.
Meanwhile, gauntlets have effectively been thrown down to rival elite colleges by the presidents of Stanford and Yale in recent alumni-magazine articles. Stanford’s John Hennessy lamented that its undergraduate population had remained nearly level for 35 years and endorsed a modest expansion as a “practical and principled response to current realities.”
“I have been president for seven years,” Dr. Hennessy wrote in the September/October issue of Stanford Magazine, “and it is still one of the most difficult parts of the job to explain to parents with gifted children why a son or daughter was denied admission. And at the same time I must come to terms with the fact that we are denying Stanford the benefit of talent that could contribute to the University.”
The caveats in Dr. Hennessy’s thoughtful essay, though, underscored why selective colleges have never linked enrollments to demographic ups and downs. If elite colleges began wholesale expansions, their leaders suggest, the experience of attending them might start to resemble the jostling clamor of some public universities. “If you added 20 students, you probably wouldn’t notice; but if you added 200 students, it has a different feel,” said Jeff Wachtel, senior assistant to Dr. Hennessy.
For selective colleges, expansion is an existential question. Might they lose their sense of genial community and village-green scale? Might they have to replace seminars with more large lecture halls? Would they damage the quality of relationships among students and professors? “It doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose for us to dilute what we’re doing,” said Mr. Marx at Amherst, where the faculty has agreed to tweak the enrollment to 1,700, from 1,600.
The recent soul-searching is not just triggered by remorse. These colleges have been earnestly trying to open themselves to more kinds of students — from low income or black, Hispanic and Native American backgrounds, from foreign countries or remote states — yet have been trying to stay the same congenial size. As with a person who wants to eat rich foods while remaining the same trim weight, the zero-sum game has proved untenable.
Perhaps no motive is more gingerly discussed then the need to preserve so-called legacies.
Claire Van Ummersen, a vice president of the American Council on Education, pointed out that expanding enrollment would allow many colleges to continue to diversify but also let them keep admitting the same numbers of children of alumni, who contribute a large proportion of the colleges’ revenue and believe their families should retain that legacy advantage. Yale’s president, Rick Levin, alluded to some of this calculus in an interview in the March/April issue of Yale Alumni Magazine. “With a larger student body,” he said, “there would be more room to do more in all of these areas, but also to do more justice to the large number of students applying to Yale who are simply brilliant and well rounded.” He also noted that adding students would cultivate future alumni who might one day become generous donors. Expanding enrollments would be a farsighted investment.
At Yale, which has an enrollment of 5,275, two committees are expected to report in February about the impact of adding two residential colleges with a total of 600 students. Yale now has 12 such colleges where students study, eat, sleep and form many of their friendships.
Some universities face particular challenges to expansion. Harvard and Columbia have exhausted campus space, and expanding into surrounding neighborhoods has been a treacherous political odyssey.
Both colleges are planning satellite campuses in Allston and Harlem, respectively, for research and graduate facilities — with Columbia winning approval for its efforts just last week — but not pointedly for undergraduate classrooms.
A Harvard iconoclast might suggest building more capacious dorms to replace some of the 12 often-quaint residential houses among which students are parceled, each with its own library, dining room and tenured housemaster. But Mr. Fitzsimmons calls those houses Harvard’s crown jewels, suggesting they define the Harvard experience.
Enlarging a student body usually means expanding faculty, which means building office and research space. That costs money, and colleges point out that even the breathtaking tuition prices extra students would pay would not foot the bill. But Harvard and Princeton, with baronial endowments, have less to worry on that score.
One could tell families frustrated by being kept out of the top dozen colleges that they should try for colleges a notch down that might welcome them.
One could also tell the colleges that rarefied intimacy and genteel character may be unsustainable luxuries when so many deserving students are clamoring to get in.
Those are the debates the colleges will have for a good long time.

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Tufts University Eliminates Loans for Lower Income Students

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [12.19.07] Tufts University today announced that it is replacing loans with scholarship grants for all undergraduates whose annual family income is below $40,000, starting with the class of 2011.

“The new policy will enable some of the neediest families in America to send their children to Tufts. It reflects Tufts’ enduring mission to provide access to students from diverse economic backgrounds,” said Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin. “This year, Tufts will award $42 million in undergraduate financial aid, all of which is need based.”

Members of the class of 2011, who enrolled in September 2007, were the first to benefit from the new program.More than 7 percent of enrolling students qualified for the loan replacement.

The new program helped Tufts to enroll the most socio-economically diverse class in its history, with 11.8 percent qualifying for a Federal Pell Grant, a widely-used benchmark for socio-economic diversity. The class of 2011 includes 162 Pell recipients, a 60 percent increase over the previous year’s class. More than 40 percent of Tufts undergraduates receive some form of financial aid.

Need-based financial aid is the top fundraising priority of the university’s current $1.2 billion “Beyond Boundaries” capital campaign.

Haverford College To Replace Loans With Grants For Incoming First-Year Students, Reduce Loan Burden For Continuing Students

An Open Letter From President Stephen G. Emerson

Friends,

Continuing our historic commitment to making a Haverford College education as accessible as possible, the Board of Managers has approved a sweeping overhaul of Haverford’s financial aid program to eliminate student loans for all incoming freshmen and to reduce the loan burden for continuing students.

I believe this is a vital and necessary step for Haverford families and the College. Our new program both reduces the barriers to a Haverford education and helps unburden our graduates of debt. In addition, it will free our students to consider career choices that they might have overlooked while under pressure to repay student loans, and will have a transformative effect on our community.

As part of this change, the College is chartering a new endowment fund — called the Next Generation Fund — to help pay for the plan. All students who receive such grants will be asked to make a pledge to support the Fund throughout their lives as their means allow and the spirit moves, with no pre-set expectation of how much they contribute. We believe that the Next Generation Fund will have broad appeal and will be supported by alumni and friends who may themselves have been the beneficiaries of grants-in-aid.

Indeed, the Next Generation Fund was inspired in part by a Haverford tradition of “giving back,” often financially. Most recently, two alumni from the Class of ‘94 made a contribution that went beyond reimbursing the College for the financial aid they had received. “We calculated what the equivalent cost would be in today’s dollars so that another pair of students, applying today, would be able to receive what we received,” the donors say.

Frankly, I’m not surprised that they chose to contribute as they did: I believe that the plan reflects Haverford’s core values of community and individual responsibility. Like our academic and social Honor Codes that require mindfulness of one’s actions in the context of a community, the Next Generation Fund will show how an individual’s actions can have a direct impact on our community. It will help ensure that others who follow enjoy the same privileges that we have enjoyed.

Up until now, Haverford had included approximately $14,000 in loans as part of a student’s financial aid package. The new plan will eliminate that debt and is part of a 25% increase in the College’s financial aid commitment. It is being made possible by the generosity of alumni, parents and friends of the College. Haverford is one of the few colleges that admits U.S. citizens and permanent residents without regard to need and meets the full demonstrated need of all admitted students.

Continuing students will also see a reduction in their loan obligation, with the greatest relief being made available to those with greatest demonstrated need. I’ll be able to announce details later this winter.

We make this announcement today with great pleasure, and thank the members of the broader Haverford community, including alumni, parents and friends of the College, who are making this possible. These changes are vital to our larger goal of making Haverford accessible to the most talented and deserving students regardless of economic circumstances.

Thank you.

Stephen G. Emerson ‘74
President

The University of Pennsylvania is the latest selective college to announce the elimination of loans from their financial aid packages. Penn is using a phased in approach to eliminate loans. Starting in Fall 2008, families with incomes below $100,000 will not have a loan portion to their financial aid package. Families above that income will have their loans reduced by 10%. In Fall 2009 all students will receive financial aid packages that do not contain loans.

In the past 2 weeks we have reported here on a number of colleges that are eliminating loans and otherwise improving their financial aid packages for their students. I would like to congratulate each of the colleges that have done so and hope that the trend continues among the selective colleges that can afford to eliminate loans from their financial aid packages.

Swarthmore Eliminates Loans in Financial Aid Awards

To further relieve the financial pressures facing students and their families, the Swarthmore College Board of Managers made the decision this weekend to replace all loans with scholarships in financial aid awards, effective the 2008-09 academic year, for both continuing and new students.

“For many students the new policy will mean being able to choose Swarthmore and to engage fully their educational experience here free of debt,” said President Al Bloom. “Moreover, an educational community marked by greater equality and opportunity empowers our students to become leaders in shaping a more just and generous world.”

“Loan-free awards will give our students the freedom to explore all career choices because they won’t need to worry about how they will repay their college loans,” added Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Jim Bock.

For Swarthmore, the new policy represents a further step in a long history of providing generous financial aid. Since the fall of 1981, the College has sought to protect its lowest-income students from the burden of debt by limiting their loans to a maximum of $1,000 a year. In the past two years, students in this group were offered loan-free financial aid awards. The current decision extends loan-free aid awards to all students with demonstrated need.

Fifty percent of Swarthmore’s students receive scholarship aid from the College. More than one third of Swarthmore’s annual spending from its endowment, amounting to nearly $20 million, is used to support its commitment to financial aid. Implementing the new loan-free award policy will cost the College approximately $1.7 million additionally each year.

PASADENA, Calif.- The California Institute of Technology will eliminate loans for its neediest undergraduate students by replacing loans with additional gift aid, such as scholarships and grants. Beginning with undergraduates entering in the fall of 2008, most domestic students whose total family incomes are $60,000 per year or less will be offered a financial-aid package that substitutes scholarship gift aid for loans.

“We know that some families who have not had much experience with higher education or large loans are often reluctant to incur debt for their children’s education. This factor, added to the sticker shock of the cost of a college education, can easily cause families to believe that such opportunities are out of their reach even when their children are admissible,” says Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau.

For domestic applicants, the Institute offers need-blind admission to its undergraduate programs without any consideration of ability to pay. Caltech is also among the very few colleges or universities that make it financially possible for any U.S. student who is admitted to attend and graduate.

Caltech currently provides financial assistance to more than half of its 913 undergraduate students, meeting 100 percent of demonstrated financial need through a combination of gift aid and self-help–student employment and loan–assistance. The average scholarship/grant for students who entered in fall 2007 was $26,704. The average total financial-aid award, including loans, for this group was $28,580. This represents approximately 61 percent of the estimated cost of attendance for these students.

The average indebtedness at graduation for Caltech’s undergraduate students already ranks among the lowest in the nation. Of the undergraduates who graduated during the 2006-07 school year, 43 percent had student loans; the average indebtedness for a student at the time of graduation was $6,268. Of those who graduated during the 2005-06 school year, 34 percent had student loans; the average indebtedness was $5,156. This compares with a national average of $19,146 for undergraduate students who graduated from four-year colleges in 2005-06, the last year for which data is available.

“This latest initiative is consistent with the Institute’s ongoing commitment to keep a Caltech education accessible to domestic students regardless of their ability to pay. Caltech appreciates the generosity of its donors, whose funding makes the school’s financial-aid initiatives possible,” says Chameau.

### Contact: Jill Perry (626) 395-3226 jperry@caltech.edu

Visit the Caltech Media Relations website at http://pr.caltech

Cambridge, Mass. – Harvard President Drew Faust and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith today (Dec. 10) announced a sweeping overhaul of financial aid policies designed to make Harvard College more affordable for families across the income spectrum. The new initiative focuses on ensuring greater affordability for middle- and upper-middle-income families through major enhancements to grant aid, the elimination of student loans, and the removal of home equity from financial aid calculations.

This initiative builds on Harvard’s recent pathbreaking policies to ensure that families with incomes below $60,000 are not asked to contribute to the cost of sending their children to Harvard.

The new policy has three major components:

• The “Zero to 10 Percent Standard”: Harvard’s new financial aid policy dramatically reduces the amount families with incomes below $180,000 will be expected to pay. Families with incomes above $120,000 and below $180,000 and with assets typical for these income levels will be asked to pay 10 percent of their incomes. For those with incomes below $120,000, the family contribution percentage will decline steadily from 10 percent, reaching zero for those with incomes at $60,000 and below. For example, a typical family making $120,000 will be asked to pay approximately $12,000 for a child to attend Harvard College, compared with more than $19,000 under existing student aid policies. For a typical family with $180,000 of income, the payment would be approximately $18,000, compared with more than $30,000 today. The new standard reduces the cost to families by one-third to one-half, making the price of a Harvard education for students on financial aid comparable to the cost of in-state tuition and fees at the nation’s leading public universities. The new initiative also establishes a standard that students and their families can easily understand.

• No Loans: In calculating the financial aid packages offered to undergraduates, Harvard will not expect students to take out loans. Loan funds will be replaced by increased grants from the University. Of course, students will be permitted to cover their reduced cost of attendance through loans if they wish.

• Eliminate Home Equity from Consideration: Under the new policy, Harvard will no longer consider home equity in determining a family’s ability to pay for college. This will reduce the price by an average of $4,000 per year for affected families as compared with current practice.

“We want all students who might dream of a Harvard education to know that it is a realistic and affordable option,” said Faust. “Education is fundamental to the future of individuals and the nation, and we are determined to do our part to restore its place as an engine of opportunity, rather than a source of financial stress. With no loans, no consideration of home equity, and a dramatic increase in grant aid, we are not tinkering at the margins, we are rebuilding the engine.

“This is a huge investment for Harvard,” Faust continued, “but there is no more important commitment we could make. Excellence and opportunity must go hand in hand.”

The new initiative amplifies Harvard’s long-standing commitment to need-based financial aid — Harvard College awards neither merit aid nor athletic scholarships. Under the new initiative, the College will continue to consider individual circumstances in assessing a family’s financial need. Families with unusually high medical or sibling educational expenses, for example, may be expected to contribute less than the expected percentage income, while those with substantial wealth that does not show up as income may find that they are expected to contribute a higher percentage.

Factors such as family size, health care costs, sibling educational expenses, and other nondiscretionary expenses that place a drain on family finances are considered carefully in assessing a family’s need, and there is no income cut-off for need-based scholarship eligibility. Currently there are more than 100 families with incomes greater than $200,000 who, because of extenuating circumstances, receive need-based financial aid.

“I am very pleased that Harvard is in a position to make these dramatic changes, and I applaud President Faust and Dean Smith for their careful thought and decisive action in this area of central importance to the University and to higher education,” said James R. Houghton, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation. “Any investment of this magnitude requires trade-offs, even at a university with substantial endowment resources. But investments in the quality of our students — like investments in the excellence of our faculty and research enterprise — occupy a special place.”

“Harvard College has had a very generous financial aid program for decades, and we have made significant enhancements in recent years, especially for families in the lower-income ranges,” said Smith, who as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences oversees Harvard College. “We are concerned, however, that families in the middle are feeling increasingly squeezed as they work more hours, pay more for housing and health care, and face greater uncertainty in retirement.

“We want to ease these burdens,” Smith continued. “We want to make Harvard affordable for talented students from all financial backgrounds, and once they are here, we want to make sure they are able to take full advantage of the opportunities we provide to build their skills and knowledge and to engage their deepest interests. This experience is not possible if families are consumed with financial worry and students are consumed with debt.”

The new initiative is the latest chapter in Harvard’s systematic effort to increase affordability and widen access for qualified students from across the economic spectrum. In the winter of 2004, under the leadership of President Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard transformed the financial aid landscape with its announcement that families with annual incomes below $40,000 would not be expected to pay for their sons or daughters to go to Harvard. The zero-contribution threshold was raised to $60,000 in 2006, with further reductions in parental contributions for families with incomes up to $80,000. Over the past three years, the number of students in these income ranges has increased by 33 percent, representing a quarter of the entering Class of 2011.

“For the past several years, we in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid have been talking with families about their needs and working with Clayton Spencer, vice president for policy, and researchers at the University to understand internal realities and external trends,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. “All of these inquiries have led us to the same conclusion — despite our best efforts to help families deal with rising college costs, our methods for measuring financial need are not as sensitive as they should be to the real circumstances faced by American families. Many parents won’t even allow their sons and daughters to apply to private colleges, while others allow their children to attend but experience real pain in paying the share we ask of them. I am deeply grateful to Dean Smith, President Faust, and the Harvard Corporation for their willingness to take such powerful action to remedy this situation.”

In a related move, Harvard in 2006 announced the elimination of its early action program — a form of nonbinding early admissions — and moved to a single admissions deadline of Jan. 1, beginning in the 2007-08 academic year. In explaining the decision, then-interim President Derek C. Bok stated that the change was designed to make the admissions process simpler and fairer. In his words, “early admissions programs tend to advantage the advantaged,” as students from more sophisticated backgrounds often use the system to increase their chances of admission, while first-generation college students and those from high schools with fewer guidance counselors and other resources may miss out.

Harvard is using the time and capacity freed up by the move to a single admissions cycle to intensify its outreach and recruiting efforts. The admissions staff is now able to travel more widely to make presentations in key cities and other areas to educate students, families, and college counselors about Harvard and the college admissions process in general and is also working with secondary schools in a renewed effort to make applying to college less complicated and less stressful than it is today.

Currently, two-thirds of Harvard College students receive some form of financial aid, and half receive need-based scholarship aid from Harvard, totaling more than $98 million. Major enhancements to financial aid began under the leadership of Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine. In the past decade, Harvard’s grant budget has increased 143 percent while inflation increased by only 28 percent. With the new initiative fully in place this coming year, more than 90 percent of American families will be eligible to benefit from Harvard’s exceptionally generous financial aid.

Durham, NC — As part of its ongoing commitment to make high-quality undergraduate education more affordable, Duke University will eliminate parental contributions for families who make less than $60,000 a year and make it possible for students from families with incomes below $40,000 to graduate debt-free.

To help relieve financial pressures on the middle class, Duke also will reduce loans for students from families with incomes up to $100,000 and will cap loans for eligible families with incomes above $100,000. Officials estimate the new financial aid program will benefit nearly 2,500 undergraduates.

“The strength of the university depends on its ability to select and recruit students on the grounds of ability, dedication and promise, not on a family’s financial circumstances,” said President Richard H. Brodhead, who in his 2004 inaugural speech identified increasing the university’s endowment for financial aid as one of his highest priorities. “We have deliberately focused these new investments on relieving the burden not only for parents with incomes below the national median but for students from middle-income families as well.”

The university’s Board of Trustees approved the significant investments in financial aid support on Saturday. Rather than phase in the changes solely for future students, they will take effect for all those receiving need-based aid who are enrolled during the fall 2008 semester.

Brodhead said the increased investment in financial aid was made possible with earnings on the university’s endowment and funds contributed to Duke’s Financial Aid Initiative, a $300-million fund-raising effort scheduled to end in December 2008.

More than 40 percent of Duke undergraduates receive need-based aid to help reduce their expenses. In 2007-08, the average need-based aid grant is about $26,700 out of a total cost of about $46,000. For more than a decade, the percentage increase of Duke’s financial aid support has far outpaced the percentage increase of tuition.

In the current academic year, Duke has budgeted $73.3 million for need-based, merit and athletic financial aid for undergraduates. With the new program and other improvements, Duke expects to increase its aid by more than 17 percent to $86 million in 2008-09. The new initiatives are projected to increase average grant support $2,500 annually for each need-based aid recipient, reducing the average costs to these students and their families by $10,000 over four years.

Duke is one of a limited number of schools with a “need-blind” admissions policy, which means that all U.S. applicants are accepted regardless of their ability to pay for college. Duke guarantees it will meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need. Financial aid packages combine grants, loans and work-study opportunities after assessing what parents and students can reasonably contribute.

“With the changes we are making to strengthen support for students on financial aid, it actually may cost an eligible family less to attend Duke than a publicly supported university,” said Jim Belvin, Duke’s financial aid director.

Duke’s new need-based financial aid program beginning fall 2008 will include these features:

– Parents of undergraduate financial aid recipients with annual incomes less than $60,000 will not be expected to contribute to their children’s educational expenses.

– Students from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000 will have loans replaced by scholarship grants.

– Students from families with annual incomes between $40,000 and $100,000 will have their loan packages reduced on a graduated basis.

– Students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or more will have loans capped at $5,000 a year.

– Students with loan packages will no longer be expected to assume a larger loan with each year of enrollment.

In 2005, Duke launched the Financial Aid Initiative to raise new endowment of $230 million for undergraduate need-based aid, as well as $15 million for athletic scholarships and $55 million to support graduate and professional school students. Brodhead said about $240 million of the goal has already been received or pledged.

“Rather than hold off until the Financial Aid Initiative is completed and all pledges are in, we want our students who receive financial aid and their families to reap some of the benefit now,” Brodhead said. “We could not have done this without the generosity of our donors — and the confidence that they will continue to support access to a Duke education for bright young people who need financial aid to attend the university.”