Posted on 03/16/2006 8:18:49 AM PST by libertarianPA
STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford University, worried about losing talented students to sticker shock, is eliminating tuition for undergraduates from the some of the lowest-income families.
Under a new program announced Wednesday, students from families with annual incomes of less than $45,000 won't pay tuition. Those with incomes up to $60,000 will pay about $3,800, the school estimates.
"Students from low-income backgrounds are underrepresented at our nation's most selective institutions," said Richard Shaw, Stanford's dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid.
"Many families ... may be discouraged by the stated tuition, so we want to be more forceful with this new program in encouraging talented low-income students to consider Stanford," he said.
Stanford's undergraduate tuition for the next school year will be nearly $33,000. Add in other expenses, such as books and housing, and the cost averages about $47,000.
Stanford already provides strong financial aid. This year, students from families earning less than $45,000 paid an average $2,650, according to the university. The new program, starting for an estimated 1,100 current and new students this fall, is expected to cost the university $3 million in the first year.
Harvard and Princeton are among other elite universities with similar programs.
College costs have been rising fast nationwide. According to the latest survey from the College Board, a nonprofit association based in Washington, D.C., tuition and fees at four-year private institutions rose nearly 6 percent to $21,235 for the 2005-06 academic year from $20,045 in 2004-05, while costs at four-year public institutions went up more than 7 percent to $5,491 from $5,126.
"To me, it seems like this liberal institution is just a little worried that their student population is a bit too "vanilla.""
Again, one must allow only the facts speak for themselves:
STUDENT STATISTICS
Undergraduate:
Total Undergraduate: 6,654
Sex
Women 3,245 (49%)
Men 3,409 (51%)
Race/Ethnicity
African American 682 (10%)
American Indian or Alaska Native 127 (2%)
Asian American or Pacific Islander 1,654 (25%)
White 3,032 (46%)
International 370 (6%)
Mexican American 627 (9%)
Other Hispanic 162 (2%)
Statistics courtesy Stanford University Facts.
Please note that white students are not in a majority. Indeed there are large represenatations of Asian, mexican, and black students.
The endowment fund talked about up thread seems to me could be used to lower tuition to all students. As far as the poor not being able to afford college, what happened to working your way through college? Another free ride for the poor and the average guy takes it in the butt. And we wonder why people demand SS to get what they paid in back.
"The difference is, if my household was making under $45,000 a year, I would choose not to have more than one child."
Now, I feel youre just arguing for the sake of argument.
I know a pastors family, with four daughters (Pastors bye the bye, dont make much money, unless of course theyre televangelists or something).
All the girls went to college. All had scholarships. All are extremely bright. One is finishing up her PhD in physics, and works at LLNL. The other is finishing her masters at Harvard. The other two are in college as we speak. These people will be valuable additions to society in the United States.
Should they not have been allowed to have become so?
Sure, maybe they would hav got loans, and used em. But its even better than they dont have to! And I bear them no grudge, even though I paid my way through college.
Merit based on what, class rank, GPA, SAT scores? Almost everyone who gets in are at the top in all of those categories. It would turn in a need scholarship by default.
Oh, maybe I didnt mention, they got Merit scholarships.
Unless things have changed private colleges receive government money too.
About Berea College
Berea College offers a high quality liberal arts education to students of all races, who have great promise but limited economic resources. Founded in 1855 as the first interracial and co-educational college in the South, the College promotes understanding and kinship among all people, service to communities in Appalachia and beyond, and sustainable living practices which set an example of new ways to conserve our limited natural resources..
Check out the linked page. They reference "liberal arts" quite a bit, but are in the hill of KY.. They also raise food and animals FOR FOOD!... hence, their "environmental" concerns!
In the San Francisco Bay Area, $45k is certainly poverty.
I was at Stanford for eight years. Never paid a dime. Of course, I was a grad student, and the research contracts that I was working on were worth about $7 million...
The major endowment is the Johnny Holmes endowment.
Since I worked for a year on the graduate admissions committee for my department (EE) at Stanford, I can give you some idea of how it's done. That year, we had 5,000 applicants. The first cut was done solely on GRE scores and normalized GPA (we adjusted for known "grade inflation"). That got us down to 500. We then threw out all of the numbers and asked "okay, what else did you do?". People who had been active in campus groups, fraternities, did projects, worked on the side all got a big boost, as we cut to the final 200. That was for the Masters program, and of those, about 70 would make it into the Doctoral track. And of those, about 40 would actually finish.
This is just ridiculous. Not more than 10 years ago, at Carnegie Mellon, Tuition, Room, Board, and Books were $28,000, and that was already outrageous. Tuition is out of control.
I have been going through the law school admissions process this year. Top schools like Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard could fill up their entire classes (several times over) with people with 99th percentile LSAT scores.
Sure for research but they are not funded by the state government to operate. There is no instate/out of state tuition difference for example.
Stanford already has a relatively high minority population, many of whom (and this may be a shock to you) come from families who make over $40,000 a year. In addition, often whites who come lower middle class families get the short end of the stick when it comes to financial aid. Stanford's program will help them the most, IMO.
But like I said, someone has to pay for this. And usually, just as it happens with athletic scholarships, the students who DO pay their tuition have to make up for it.
As many people have told you on this board, Stanford has a very large endownment fund, as does Harvard and Princeton. That is why they can do this, not because of their tuition rates. Duke for instance, charges similar tuition and costs but cannot do this because its endownment is a lot smaller than these other schools.
It is when you consider that full freight at college is higher than your annual income.
The point is that the first thing these kids are being taught is that they don't have to work as hard as kids whose parents make $46,000.
What baloney. What they will be taught is that the University values them enough as students that they want to ensure they can stay in school despite weak finances on the part of their parents.
They don't have to learn life lessons like working to contribute to their education or paying back debts.
So the University is going to just give them free money for travel, books, food, apartments, having fun, laundry, etc.? I think not.
The point is those who come from families making a dollar more than $45,000 will have to find jobs and take out loans in order to pay for the now-inflated tuitions to cover those who are considered "poor".
Umm, they specifically raised more endowment money to pay for this program. Tuition doesn't even come close to paying for these places anyway - much of the money comes from research grants.
You also don't seem to comprehend how college financial aid works. Even as tutition goes up, financial aid also goes up, so that people are not forced to quit college because of finances. It is done on a sliding scale with regard to actual needs based on individual circumstances.
In any case, if I run a university, and I did want to give away tution free to one group of people, and make others pay more, what is that to you, as so-called Libertarian? Can I not do as I wish with my university and money?
Could you be a little moer racist? No white people earn under $45K per year?
You obviously missed the point.
I'm talking about the dangers of racial quotas.
Elite Universities give out financial aid for demonstrated need, and it seems to me it is pretty fairly done. Rich Americans and all foreigners pay full freight. Poor Americans get lots of grants. The middle class gets a mixed bag in between.
If you want a merit scholarship, there are plenty of private ones out there. I held one from the Swiss Benevolent Society of Chicago. It required proof that I was of Swiss Ancestory and had a 3.5 GPA. The local Railway Club business group I belong to funds a coupel of scholarships per yer for meritorious children of members. The National Merit Scholarship is always available to those who actually are meritorious on the College Boards (I got that too). Some friends of mine got a full ride merit scholarships from a local philanthropist, who funded four-six kids per year from Mt. Union, PA to go to elite schools.
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