Ivies to lobby for change in fin. aid policy

The University may join several other Ivy League schools to lobby Congress for legislation which would allow colleges to exchange some financial aid information. The proposed bill would allow the exchange of general financial aid information, such as formulas to determine aid, and would let schools find a similar definition of what qualifies as need. The Ivy League and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used to meet annually to share this information. The schools would also exchange specific financial data on students who had applied to more than one of the colleges so the schools could offer near-identical aid packages. But the U.S Justice Department filed suit against the Ivies and MIT in May, alleging the annual meetings were akin to fixing prices. As a part of a settlement, signed by the eight Ivies but not MIT, the schools agreed not to share financial aid information. "Under the consent degree it is more difficult for people to determine what is need at one school and another school," said David Morse, the University's coordinator for federal relations. "What you have is the prospect for 50 or 100 or 200 different criteria for determining need." He also said the consent decree has put financial aid administrators in "sort of a limbo" because they are not sure what they can discuss with one another. As a result, incoming students at several Ivies have reported receiving radically different aid offers from schools. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that some students had received offers differing by several thousands of dollars. Officials at all Ivy schools have argued that the drastic differences in the aid offers forces students to choose a college for financial and not academic reasons. The passage of such a law would make parts of the settlement obsolete and would allow the schools to exchange some basic financial aid information so there would be less difference in the packages offered. Even if such a law is passed, however, universities would still not exchange information on individual students. Morse said yesterday that the University and other Ivy League schools are still in the preliminary stages of working on a proposal. He said the group -- which includes the eight Ivies, the American Council on Education and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators -- has not actually contacted members of Congress yet. The schools have also not drafted a bill to be considered. "We have to get some degree of consensus and agreement among ourselves," Morse said. But he added the settlement with the Justice Department allows the schools to discuss legislation of this kind. Morse said the University "would not be averse" to working for such a law because it would help institutions work from common ground. He added that the University is not spearheading the movement to examine the possibility of passing a federal law. "We are not leading the bandwagon," Morse said. He said the federal government might be interested in such a law because it allocates aid based on need, as does the Ivy League. A law which allows exchange of information could "give leverage to [the government's] own investment in aid by allowing institutions to use the same factors in determining aid," Morse said. Robert Durkee, a spokesperson for Princeton University, would only confirm that such talks are taking place. Officials at other Ivy institutions could not be reached for comment.

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