Improving the College's financial aid program
By President Ronald D. Liebowitz
The College's strategic planning process is in the homestretch. In February, the Board of Trustees heard presentations from members of the planning committee and then discussed the draft plan over the course of its weekend meetings. Following some time for further community and board feedback during this spring, the trustees will be asked to endorse the plan at or before their May meetings on campus.
The process leading up to the drafting of the plan took a full year, and involved more than 120 students, faculty, and staff, who participated on numerous task forces, each of which focused on a particular issue or challenge facing the College. The task forces, which represented the first stage of the planning process, submitted collectively more than 200 recommendations to the planning committee, following five months of work. The planning committee sorted through and discussed the task force reports and their recommendations and eventually, after seven months of deliberations, presented a draft report to the trustees and to the Middlebury community.
The draft plan includes 82 recommendations that address a wide range of subjects and areas central to our mission. The single highest priority in the plan is the recommended enhancement of the College's financial aid program. Students, faculty, and staff strongly believe this should be the number one priority. The great majority of surveys the planning committee circulated on campus last year, and the majority of the four thousand alumni surveys submitted to the planning committee, made the same recommendation. This may seem odd, as Middlebury's admissions and need-based financial aid program is one of fewer than 30 in the entire country that admits its students regardless of their ability to pay the College's comprehensive fee, and then meets the full demonstrated need of those admitted students. In addition, the average grant awarded to those who qualify for financial aid, was, in 2005, approximately $25,000. Then why, you may ask, is financial aid identified as the leading priority in the plan?
First, as a practical matter, over the past five years, the leading colleges and universities in the country have made two significant changes in their need-based financial aid programs that have a direct bearing on Middlebury's ability to compete for the very best students. The first change, led by Princeton and then followed by many of the Ivy League schools, Williams, and Amherst, reduced or eliminated altogether the loan portion of their need-based financial aid awards for students whose family income is below a certain threshold (most commonly $40,000). This change addressed the large indebtedness many students incur during their four years of college. The institutions that have introduced these changes represent seven of Middlebury's 10 largest admissions overlap schools—the colleges and universities to which applicants to Middlebury also apply. Thus, when students who receive financial aid choose†among many of the most selective schools in the country and Middlebury, they know that choosing Middlebury will leave them with far more debt upon graduation than choosing one of the other top schools that might have also accepted them.
The second—and from a philosophical point of view perhaps more important—change many of the most selective schools have made in their financial aid packages has been an aggressive recruitment of underrepresented groups in an effort to address the widening disparity between those who are being referred to as society's "haves" and "have-nots." The elite institutions, because of their special place in American society, have the ability to create opportunities for upward mobility like few other institutions. By recruiting and matriculating underrepresented students, these colleges and universities can play a leading role in reducing the opportunity gap that, according to many recent studies, has widened appreciably during the past decade. Most elite private institutions currently enroll a greater number of students who pay full tuition than who receive financial aid—a rather astounding statistic when the average comprehensive cost of these colleges and universities has surpassed $40,000 per year.
If colleges and universities did not pursue this kind of initiative to reach out to those talented students with less financial means, they would be contributing to the growth of an underclass rather than using their great influence to increase opportunities to those in greatest need. In the long term, outreach of this kind will contribute positively to the country's competitiveness and overall well-being, and will bring to campus exceptionally talented students who previously would have never had the opportunity to study at the leading institutions.
Improving Middlebury's financial aid program will also help it achieve the important goal of matriculating a diverse student body, broadly defined, principally to provide the richest learning environment for our students. With the cost of private higher education what it is, the absence of a generous and competitive financial aid program would necessarily lead to a student body that is well off financially and socioeconomically homogeneous, the results of which will limit what our students can learn from one another as they confront difference.
A student body that reflects the diversity of our country—indeed the world—in terms of its socioeconomic, ethnic, racial, geographical, and intellectual diversity would enable and indeed force students to engage and consider issues from multiple perspectives and thereby provide a richer educational experience that they will value their entire lives.
Middlebury has actually been ahead of the curve in this particular area, especially with regard to internationalizing its student body. During the past 25 years, Middlebury's student body has become far more diverse by virtually all measures, and our students have benefited from the change. In 1980, 5 percent of the students were either international students or American students of color (using the federal government's definition, which includes Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos/Latinas).
Today, approximately 27 percent of the College's student body falls into these two categories, with international students accounting for more than 10 percent of Middlebury's 2,350 students. Specific initiatives, such as the Posse Program, which brings, on average, ten students per class from inner city schools to Middlebury, and the United World College Scholars Programs, which brings approximately 25 students per class from around the world to campus, have diversified the student body and brought a wide range of experiences and perspectives to our classrooms, residence halls, and everyday interactions on campus. Most of the elite schools are now increasing their efforts to recruit international and other previously underrepresented groups to their campuses in an effort to create the best learning environments. We need to stay ahead of the curve among the elite schools, which, for us, means in particular increasing the number of African Americans and students from lower and middle class backgrounds. By offering more generous and competitive financial aid awards, along with other innovative approaches to recruiting, the College will matriculate more students from these underrepresented groups, which will further enrich the atmosphere for learning.
To learn more about Middlebury's strategic plan, visit:
http://go.middlebury.edu/planning/
To reach Ron Liebowitz, e-mail:
officeofthepresident@middlebury.edu