The estimated cost of attending Northwestern for the 2007-08 academic year is $49,379. Sonya Roberts’ family is paying all of it.
“It would be nice to understand where all that money goes to,” the Communication freshman said. “I feel that even if you’re very rich it’s still hard to afford.”
With college enrollment at record highs, financial aid has become a national issue. In December, a bill was introduced in Congress that would mandate institutions spend a set amount of their endowments on aid. In a recent Republican debate, presidential candidates former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney argued over whether the children of illegal immigrants deserve scholarships.
As a result, new developments are underway that may change how much students pay for their education. While Northwestern has taken note of these changes, no similar ones will occur here soon, NU Associate Provost Michael Mills said.
Last month, Duke University capped loans for undergraduates and eliminated tuition costs families earning less than $60,000.
Two days later, Harvard University made headlines by going a step further – eliminating loans entirely. Families making less than $180,000 a year will also pay a maximum of 10 percent of their family’s income in tuition.
These new policies raised the annual amount the college spends on aid from $98 million to $120 million.
Harvard is not alone in implementing changes to its tuition requirements. In response to Harvard’s new policy, several high profile schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College and Tufts University all canceled their loan programs and replaced them with varying levels of need-based aid. Yale officials announced Monday that the school would significantly increase the amount of its endowment that it spends on financial aid.
The NU administration has taken notice of the aid increases, Mills said.
“Everyone watches what Harvard does,” Mills said. “There are some very preliminary discussions about increasing financial aid, what we should do and who we should target.”
NU has already had two classes of students that have received loan-free financial aid offers, Mills said, although last year only 24 students received these offers.
“The numbers are still small but it’s a nice progress,” Mills said. “It could be expanded in the future.”
Mills said, given NU’s smaller current financial aid budget of $70 million, any increase in the NU program would not be as generous as Harvard’s.
He also said he had concerns about the long-term effects of expanding aid to those not generally considered in “need.”
“I can’t believe we’d want to go after $180,000 (family income) students,” Mills said. “There’s some concern that, given all the advantages the affluent already enjoy in terms of K-12, this in the long run will end up squeezing out lower-income students.”
Dr. Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, said concerns about financial aid fairness are valid, but are outweighed by the need to reduce tuition.
“It’s a yuppie subsidy,” the NU alumnus (Weinberg ’62) said. “But hell, the whole system is a yuppie subsidy. Take the recreation center – you have these state-of-the-art facilities being subsidized by taxpayers because the people who made the donations to build it got tax deductions.”
He also said if NU followed Yale’s example and dipped into its $6 billion endowment, it could increase its aid by more $22 million dollars, the same amount of money that Harvard spent on increasing aid.
“They probably could do it without giving the store away, endangering future students or having (NU President Henry) Bienen lose sleep at night,” Vedder said. “If Northwestern spent 1 percent of its endowment, my guess is it would translate into a $50 million increase in spending.”
Roberts, whose family’s income is less than $180,000 a year, said, while she did not understand the reasons behind the tuition prices at NU remaining steady despite recent events, she feels NU shouldn’t devalue itself.
“I certainly feel it would be great if they could pay more aid,” said Roberts. “On the other hand, the college has to make money and people need to value their education enough to pay for it.”
Weinberg senior Wayne Hsieh has not received aid while at NU but would qualify for aid under Harvard’s new standards. He expressed a slightly less conflicted opinion of the increase in aid at other schools.
“I’m impressed,” Hsieh said. “I’m a little jealous of Harvard students right now.”
Reach Michael Gsovski at [email protected].
