High cost of higher education in U.S. again subject of scrutiny

Hayley Tsukayama Staff Writer

In a bold move, peer liberal arts institution Davidson College eliminated the use of loans from its financial aid packages in favor of grants and work-study programs to reduce the amount of debt for undergraduate students. It is the first national liberal arts college to do so.

“Beginning August 2007, Davidson will meet all financial need with no student loans,” the school’s website proudly proclaimed. “You now can graduate debt-free.” At a time when college tuition is on the rise everywhere in the country, Davidson’s plan caters to increasing concern about the implications of unaffordable higher education.

Hot on the heels of the Davidson announcement this week came a study by the Lumina Foundation for Education, which suggested that high tuition prices in the U.S. cause fewer young adults to attend college. The study, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Daily Pennsylvanian, reported that a smaller percentage of U.S. citizens between the ages of 25 and 34 have earned an associate’s degree or higher, when compared to their counterparts in Canada, Japan, Korea, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, and Norway. By contrast, the U.S. and Canada have the most scholars in the 45 to 54 age group.
The Lumina Foundation’s Making Opportunity Affordable initiative suggested earlier this month that the low percentages present problems in an age of globalization. In a report entitled “Hitting Home,” the Foundation said that fewer college-educated Americans means more outsourcing in the future.

Both reports point to high college costs as the main reason that young people are not graduating from college, or even going in the first place.

In revamping its financial aid system, Davidson is attempting to address such concerns. According to the Davidson website, American college students borrow nearly $53.8 billion every year to cover college costs.

This past December, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) executive council officially recommended a policy of need-blind aid, like the one at Davidson, for implementation at Vassar College.

“This has been a personal priority of mine this year, and of Coucil,” said VSA President Abel McDonnell ’06 in an email. “The College needs to wholly and thoughtfully evaluate our policies of admission and financial aid in the coming years. Policies of admission and financial aid are more than just a question of who gets in to the College and who does not; they're a statement of institutional values, who we are and where we want to go.”

Council passed a resolution instructing the students on the Joint Committee on Admission and Financial Aid (JCAFA), stating that “the current ‘needs-sensitive’ admissions policy” is “regressive” and “unfairly biased” against poorer students. The JCAFA, in turn, has since recommended the institution
of a need-blind policy to President Catharine “Cappy” Hill.

All this news comes in the wake of the letter that all Vassar students received—both at home and in their email inboxes—outlining a 5.7% increase in tuition for next year, bringing total Vassar tuition to $46,685 mark.