International students who are eligible for financial aid will receive the same benefits of Penn's new loan-free program, according to the University.
But the new financial aid plan will not affect the number of international students that Penn can admit and offer aid to, and will not change the eligiblity requirements for an aid package.
Students who are not citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., Canada or Mexico and need financial aid face stiffer competition for admission to the University because the need-blind admissions policy does not extend to them.
Under that policy, domestic students' financial profiles are not considered as part of their overall application, thereby removing their ability to pay tuition as a factor in their admission.
"I know that it is very hard and competitive to get financial aid," as an international student, College sophomore Chris Lim said.
Lim, a Korean student, added that many foreign students feel they will be at a disadvantage in the application process if they demonstrate financial need.
Still, the plan the University implemented last December will provide some assistance for international students, if not in the next year.
The section of the policy that provides grant-based packages to students with family incomes under $100,000 by the fall of 2008 will not apply to non-domestic students.
However, international students who demonstrate high levels of need - levels comparable to those of domestic students - will receive a no-loan package by the fall of 2009.
Director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling attributed the different policies to the fact that a particular income in the United States does not necessarily correlate to the same amount in a foreign country.
"We would be looking at apples and oranges if we did that," Schilling said.
Still, "if international students are admitted and aided, we will meet their full needs. It's a question of how many we can admit," Schilling said.
He added that Penn does not extend the need-blind policy to international students because, on average, aiding international students costs the University more than domestic students.
Penn currently provides aid to about 250 international undergraduates - approximately 7.5 percent of the aided student population.
This is partly due to the fact that international students are not eligible for government grant programs, Schilling said. As a result, in most cases the University has to meet all of the grant needs of these students.
"We also have to contribute toward international work-study from our own aid budget because the students are not eligible for federal work-study," Schilling said.
All of these add to the cost, he added.
The new plan is "not changing the policy about how many international students we can admit and aid," Schilling said.
Since the financial aid initiative does not directly increase the number of aid-eligible international students, many of them are skeptical about how much impact this new initiative will have on them.
Penn should use its funds "to offer more international students at least a basic financial aid package," Wharton sophomore and international student Jason Da Rosa said.
Schilling said that he hopes to see the number of aided international students grow, but a lot of this hinges on the success of the University's capital campaign. Increasing access to financial aid for international students is one of the campaign's objectives, he added.
