Yale Daily News NEW HAVEN, Conn. (U-WIRE) -- In the wake of Harvard's 20 percent budget boost to financial aid, Yale administrators are once again evaluating the direction of their own policy -- and whether they can afford to stay in the race. Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Dean Richard Shaw said the school's Sub-Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid will take up the issue at its next meeting. "We'll take a look at what we have and what the market place looks like," Shaw said. "We know that certainly other institutions are making significant financial aid choices." The Harvard policy, which slices $2,000 off the self-help component of each student's financial aid package and allows students to keep all outside scholarship money, is the most recent in a wave of financial aid reforms that have swept the nation's top schools. Prompted by Princeton's aid overhaul last year, Yale, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all jumped on the reform bandwagon, and have each changed the way they calculate financial need. What was once a fairly uniform system across schools has become a complicated bidding war for students, with each school using its own formula for creating aid packages. Yale must now evaluate the effect of its own new policy in a constantly changing, competitive landscape. So far, the right direction for Yale's financial aid policy remains uncertain, administrators said. But beyond the questions of competition, Yale faces a deeper philosophical dilemma about the purpose of need-based financial aid. "It would seem to me that on the face of it, they are adding a merit aspect," Yale Provost Alison Richard said of the component of Harvard's policy that allows students to use 100 percent of outside scholarship money they receive to reduce student loans and work requirements. "It isn't cutting away at need-based aid, it's adding a merit based system on top of a need-based system." Yale currently counts a portion of student's outside scholarship money toward reducing his or her self-help requirement, boosting the school's total financial aid resources and maintaining need-based aid for the entire student body. The rest Yale keeps and redistributes to all qualified students. Yale Financial Aid Director Donald Routh said Yale students bring in $2 million a year in outside scholarships, $1 million of which goes into the general pool.
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.
DonatePlease note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.
