A lack of loans, all to increase affordability

Tuition may have gone up, but Penn officials are doing their best to make the University more affordable.

The new financial-aid initiative, unanimously passed at last Thursday's meeting of the Board of Trustees Budget and Finances committee, replaces loans with grants for students whose families have an income of less than $60,000 a year.

With this elevated no-loan zone, Penn is reaching out to a wider range of what it calls "high-need students."

"Last year, when we talked about the under-$50,000 policy, we were sort of defining the group we were addressing as families with socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds," said Director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling.

And now, he says, the University is extending this group to those "in the area of low and lower-middle income families."

An estimated 213 additional students will benefit from the new package next year, and administrators will be working to raise that number by making sure low-income families are aware of the opportunities they have at Penn.

"We want to send a clear message to families who may have felt that Penn was out of their reach that we are committed to supporting them as they seek to provide the best possible educational opportunities for their children," Penn president Amy Gutmann said in a press release.

That message may help Penn achieve a more socio-economically diverse student body, Schilling said.

"When we look at students at Penn and similar institutions, we tend to have an under-representation of families of lower and lower-middle income populations," he said.

And it's not that Penn isn't admitting these students - they just aren't applying.

Having no-loan financial-aid policies is crucial for making Penn more accessible to these kinds of students, he said.

College freshman Esther Cho, who receives a no-loan package, echoed these sentiments.

"There are a lot of people from low-income families who are very educated, but they wouldn't even be able to have the opportunity if it wasn't for those packages," Cho said.

She added that, were it not for Penn's financial-aid guarantees, she probably would not have applied in the first place.

Students who fall into the new no-loan range will not have to do anything special to receive their new package: Everything will be calculated as usual after financial-aid officers review the appropriate forms.

College freshman Hyun Kim, who also receives all grants, said that one of the reasons Penn was so attractive to him was its financial-aid policy.

"Initial high tuition costs didn't deter me too much because I knew about the policy beforehand," Kim said.

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