The competition among Ivy League Schools to attract low-income and minority students has intensified.
Less than a year after establishing a new financial aid program, Princeton University's yield of coveted minority and low-income students has skyrocketed, and many other schools -- including Penn -- say they simply don't have the money to compete.
Last January, Princeton abolished all student loans, converting them to grants. The new financial aid program is heavily funded by the school's endowment, which stood at $8 billion in Fiscal Year 2000.
"We have been seeing some very good growth in our endowment, but we're still not near Princeton in how much our program can support," said Penn Director of Financial Aid William Schilling.
Designed to ease the large debts that most financial aid students incur upon graduating, Princeton's program was one of many improvements made by the school's financial aid department since 1997.
According to figures recently published in the Journal for Blacks in Higher Education, the percentage of low-income African-American students accepting Princeton's offer of admission has risen from 49 percent in 1997 to 65 percent this year. Penn's yield of African-American aid recipients has only increased from 43.1 to 48.9 percent over the last four years.
Additionally, the number of African Americans in Penn's Class of 2005 -- 6.5 percent -- falls short of Princeton's 9.5 percent.
Jeanne Arnold, director of Penn's African American Resource Center, said she hopes Princeton's newly released figures will be an impetus for Penn to step up its own attempts to enroll minorities and low-income students.
"I hope that these figures will serve as some sort of motivation for us to keep building our endowment to provide increased grant aid," Arnold said.
"I think that when students sit down and look at their acceptances to Princeton and Penn, they're going to have to look at whether they want to graduate from an institution without any debts," Arnold said. "It's kind of appealing that one could get an education that is debt free."
The increased yields leave Princeton very close in that respect to Harvard University, which is renowned for its successful recruitment of African-American students.
"There's a fair amount of good competition in this area," said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard. "We have had a generous financial aid policy, and will continue to act in the need of the students at all times."
Last February, Harvard also increased its financial aid funding, although it did not replace all loans with grants. In September, Yale University followed in Princeton's and Harvard's footsteps by allocating an additional $7.5 million for scholarship grants.
Penn, however, has not yet undergone drastic changes in its financial aid policies.
"Over time we have been working to try to liberalize and increase the competitiveness of our aid program," Schilling said. "We think that we can be competitive among the Ivy League schools."
Unlike Princeton, where the financial aid department is funded primarily by the endowment, Penn's program receives the bulk of its money from unrestricted income.
"Penn has already been a place that is attractive to a more diverse community," University President Judith Rodin said in an e-mail statement. "We are continually enhancing our aid program to meet the needs of our students and maintain our competitive position."
Schilling agreed, claiming that Penn's minority recruitment was not going to be threatened by Princeton's larger numbers.
"It's always possible that Princeton may have pulled away a few students, but overall, we haven't been very affected" Schilling said. "As Princeton's yield is increasing, so is ours."
Regardless, the rise in Princeton's enrollment of low-income and minority students will provide motivation for Penn and the rest of the Ivy League to keep recruiting minorities and low-income students.
Princeton's increased yield of minority and low-income students "should be an incentive for all of us in the Ivy League to do as much as we can to make giving money for student aid as appealing as possible," Arnold said.
