Duke's financial aid changes: a transformational step

I usually don't write about matters happening over at Duke, focusing the blog instead on Durham matters (and, to wit, Duke's impact on Durham occasionally.) But I can't help but make mention of Duke's major announcement this weekend about financial aid -- as much for the impact such a change will have on Durham as on Duke.

In case you missed it: starting in the 2008-09 year, undergraduates whose family income is less than $40,000 will attend Duke with no out-of-pocket costs or loans. Students whose families earn $40,000 to $60,000 will still have some loans upon graduation but families will not be expected to make any annual financial contribution towards tuition and room-and-board.

In the upheavals of the past year, you haven't heard much on campus about socioeconomic diversity -- save for an important series of columns in the Duke Chronicle by Rachel McLaughlin, a Duke senior who's also very active in volunteer efforts in the community. As McLaughlin points out in her columns "A Factor Overlooked" and "Recruiting a Different Kind of Diversity," the level of socioeconomic diversity at Duke impacts the relationship between students and the broader community as well as within Duke:

With roughly 6,200 undergraduates at Duke, this leaves 3,700 students who are not on financial aid. Assuming that a family with a $200,000 yearly income behaves rationally and applies for the financial aid for which they qualify, we can say that these 3,700 students (60 percent of the student body) come from families whose incomes exceed $200,000 every year.

U.S. Census data drives the significance of this number home. The data shows that the aggregate income received by the top 5 percent of families in 2004 was $173,640. Get this-the majority of Dukies meet this criterion, making Duke an institution that primarily caters to the lovely children of America's top 5 percent.

So Duke students represent a wealthy, privileged subset of the American population. Blatant indicators like Beamers and Coach purses aside, how does socioeconomic class operate beneath the Duke surface?

Might socioeconomic class affect the way in which Duke students... view the world?... interact with members of the opposite sex?... join sororities or fraternities?... volunteer in the community? Might economic status influence career ambition and support a culture of effortless perfection?

...

The expense of four years at the University combined with ignorance about financial aid resources may deter smart and qualified kids from taking the first step and applying. I grew up with bright kids who applied to Truman State rather than Penn or Duke. Truman was within their reach financially and had a sweet deal for National Merit Finalists. Harvard and Duke were out of the question because no one understood that the profound commitment to financial aid of Duke and its alumni could make this stellar education within reach....

Although schools like Duke and Harvard can do little to reverse the systematic problems endemic to our nation's educational system, they can alter potential applicant outreach so it targets a more economically diverse applicant pool. Students think Duke is out of their reach. They can educate these students and their guidance counselors that it is not. Duke's 100-percent assurance of meeting financial need and "need-blind" admissions reflects the institution's deep commitment to increasing educational access-a commitment the University has right. More kids need to know about it.

My own perspective on the issue is borne out by my years at Harvard, both as an undergraduate (in the years before Harvard's own financial aid initiative made the university more affordable for individuals from the middle- and working-class) and from the five years I spent working there shortly after graduation.

Simply put, there was a real and dramatic transformation of and within the student body as Harvard was able to increasingly draw students from across the socioeconomic strata. During my undergraduate years, students who came from poverty or near-poverty truly seemed more isolated from campus activities and the core of campus life. Students found themselves recategorized by their economic background, even when participating in groups that were nominally based around social activities or ethnicities.

Ironically, some of the most heterogeneous groups of students I knew were those divided by geography or national origin but united by the fact that they knew what it was like to be poor at Harvard.

Fast-forward a few years. As part of its outreach after transforming financial aid, Harvard more aggressively than ever began to recruit top students from schools and neighborhoods well beyond the prep schools and suburban enclaves. Students from low-income backgrounds came in greater numbers -- though it remains a campus where only 10% of students come from families earning less than $40,000 a year. But there nonetheless was a transformation in opportunity and in ways of thinking.

In my undergraduate years, students from low-income backgrounds sometimes missed out of opportunities to work in research labs or serve in extracurriculars because of their need to work 10, 20, 30 hours a week to pay the tuition bill. (Notably, the campus paper added a scholarship program in the 1990s to make working at The Crimson -- a notorious feeder system for the New York Times and other national papers, but a commitment that could take forty or more unpaid hours a week of dedication -- accessible to students on financial aid.)

In my later years working at Harvard, I had great student-employees leave the office where I worked because increased financial aid meant they could take that low-paying lab job or research assistant position, which would help them achieve far more in their field of study or would help them get into graduate school.

And I was thrilled for them.

Besides transforming opportunities for students from diverse economic backgrounds, when you look at the integration of a college community into a city, there are obvious and real tensions that can exist when you surround a wealthy campus with a more traditional, mixed-income community. And I certainly saw this at Harvard, too; though the campus was always engaged in intensive outreach to neighborhoods and schools in need in Cambridge and Boston, that energy only seemed to increase after the financial aid initiative, as more students could themselves afford to devote time and energy in an unpaid realm.

I suspect that a Duke that can more fully engage students across economic strata will find itself, over the years, with a student body that feels at home in Durham, that continues and increases its engagement with the city that Duke calls home.

I had a chance to talk with Ms. McLaughlin at a recent community event and was taken by her real passion for Durham and for her volunteer and organizational work within the Bull City. I don't think it's a coincidence that McLaughlin, as she notes in one of her articles, comes from a decidedly middle-class family, a background that gives young college students the clearest perspective possible about the tremendous benefits that accrue to them when they're admitted to one of the nation's elite universities.

For students like this, the chance to attend a school is transformative in their lives and their families'. What's less frequently acknowledged is how transformative these students can be on their institutions, too.

...

I'd be remiss if I didn't point readers in the direction of this truly excellent three-part series published last month in The Harvard Crimson, telling the story of a student from Detroit who's benefited from and found economic opportunity through Harvard's own financial aid initiative. (For those who think I'm occasionally too hard on campus journalists at Duke, the high quality of the narrative and reporting in this story shows the truly high bar for which undergraduate writers can reach for in the right environment.)

Comments

Perhaps you can comment on the town/gown angle -- my own Harvard/Duke experience was seeing cheap eats such as The Tasty and The Wursthaus replaced by Ambercrombie & Fitch, while at Duke the A&P near E. Campus was replaced by Whole Foods (so much for buying Diet Coke at non-gas station prices). At least we still have Banh's. Keep Durham gritty!

[-]

I didn't bother applying to Duke because, at the time I was applying for undergraduate school, Duke's application fee was $50. All the other schools I was applying to, ones I considered more accessible to me, were state schools and charged $15-25.

I was accepted to every school I applied to and wound up enrolling in the one that offered me an unsolicited full academic scholarship in my acceptance letter.

I don't regret not attending Duke; I don't regret choosing not to apply. Reading this post, though, I am struck at where the actual barriers to entry sometimes lie. For many applicants, the $10k/year tuition of a less prestigious school seems just as far out of reach as the $40k+/year tuition of Duke. In hindsight, it seems silly that this $25 difference would matter; but when affording university tuition is unimaginable anyway, perhaps it can.

[bennc]

The other pretty cool thing Duke did this year was DukeEngage which for the first time makes the whole Study Abroad experience available to students on financial aid who, like when I was an undergrad elsewhere, otherwise would have to spend every break working to make up their individual financial aid contribution. I'm as cynical as the next person but this is pretty sweet.

[Phil]

Regarding the previous (anonymous) comment about the Duke application fee -- I think it's fair to mention that Duke and and the majority of other US universities have some sort of application fee waiver system. I don't know what the previous commenter's financial situation was at the time s/he applied -- and it's quite possible that s/he would not have qualified for the fee waiver -- but I do want to mention that it exists now and (I'm almost certain) also existed back when the Duke application fee was $50.

Perhaps of greater importance -- the previous commenter leads me to mention/echo that one of the real barriers to socioeconomic diversity at elite private universities is awareness that adequate financial aid is both available and negotiable. Universities spend significant resources trying to get this message out to counselors, parents, and students at high schools that have lower-income students who might have the academic qualifications to attend.

From my own experiences as a Brown University volunteer, I know that it's no easy trick to get a lot of people to understand, "You don't have to be rich to go here. And you don't have to be rich to be happy here." I'm not saying that it's not worth the effort -- I'm just saying that it's hard work. This isn't just about making opportunities socially equitable. It's also about sales and marketing.

In my daily life as a citizen and community volunteer, and in my daily work as a marketing consultant, I see the same situation in many other places. Many older Americans need a boatload of help to identify and do the paperwork for health benefits under Medicare. Same for many veterans. My 65-year-old uncle who has lived one-third of his adult life in low-income circumstances just found out that he's eligible for VA benefits. Urban Ministries of Durham has at least one full-time staff person to help its clients sign up for Medicaid, disability, or other benefits.

Back to the original thread -- I have no doubt that Harvard will have an easy time spending all its financial aid dollars for families in the income segments that they're targeting. But they'll still have to work to make sure that those families are coming from the broad variety of schools, cities, and sociocultural backgrounds that they're trying to have represented in Cambridge.

[Dan S.]

@ - : Want to know something even more incredible about tuition? Duke isn't even one of the most expensive schools to attend.

My alma mater, GW, will charge $39,210 (+ $11,900 for room and board) to this year's incoming freshmen -- that's for a school that hasn't been ranked in the US News top 50 schools in the last few years. That's the second-highest tuition in the country for a school ranked #54.

Duke, by comparison, ranked #8 by US News, is #52 on the tuition list, at $35,512 (+ $9,000 in room and board).

Source: http://chronicle.com/premium/stats/tuition/2007/results.php?Year=2007&State_Type=&Carnegie_Type=&Class_Type=&Order=thisin

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On a completely frivolous note, Ms. McLaughlin should be made aware that "Beamers/Beemers" are motorcycles*; "Bimmers" are cars.

* "Beemer" dates to the postwar days of 'cafe racers', where 'beezers' -- motorcycles buit by the Birmingham Small Arms Company competed against bikes built by a (then) relatively unknown company based in Munich.

[Toastie]

Good info and great analysis; definitely worthy of the national spotlight!

Duke still has a way to go to come close to what Harvard is doing (doing away with loans in favor of grants, for one thing). See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22186316/

[chris]

Speaking from personal experience, I found it rather insulting to have to apply for financial aid at private universities. They wanted to know about my parents' income and bank accounts, and it felt like I was engaging in an act of supplication.

I actually never filled-out any of those financial aid forms. I graduated from Durham's Riverside High School in 1993, and chose to throw the forms away, and just go to UNC instead. Tuition at that time way $900/semester, which was an amount my parents could afford. No begging was required, which made it feel like the right place to go.

I'm not the only one who got accepted by prestigious private schools, but went to UNC instead. In my graduating class at Riverside, I believe that 26 of the top 32 students, in terms of class rank, went to UNC, and a few of the others went to NC State.

Virtually all UNC undergrads had very good private university options, but we all made the decision to reject them. It's actually a great source of pride for us as alumni, and the main reason we hate dook (from a sports perspective). Good thing we usually win.

[Valerie]

I remember a rumor in high school that if you made it into Duke, the lack of money would not be a barrier. Now that all this news is coming out, I think that must not have been true. Eh, I didn't really feel like finding out either. Go Heels! ;)

[Chaz]

Phil,

With apologies to everyone else for going off topic: I have just gone through the VA application process, a.k.a. nightmare, on behalf of my father. Do your uncle a favor. If he is in Durham, get David Kennedy of the downtown VA regional office on your side now, or his local VA office if he lives elsewhere. Write your US Rep now to go to bat for your uncle because of extreme economic hardship and stay on the VA pencil pushers every moment. Do all the paperwork they ask and more. If he's World War II, demand his application be sent to their Tampa office from the start, where all WWII requests now go, so it doesn't languish elsehwere unheeded.

Your uncle desrves the VA's help, and should have had it all along, but they actively hide the existence of aid and attendance benefits (which will give him a pension each month for either a rest home or home health care) from people, then stall the application process, hoping the applicant dies before they have to grant it. It took me an entire year for my father's application to be approved -- and that was using an expedited process1! Good luck to him.

And everyone else, please forgive for caring more about an old man who served his country and hasn't been given his due, rather than a bunch of young whippersnappers lusting after a Duke degree tonight. I'm in the kind of mood where I feel like we're all lucky not to be eating cat food, especially given the insanity of a world where college tuition costs $35,00 to $40,000 a year. (And incredibly privileged to even be able to have a debate like this.)

[Natalie]

You don't have to be rich to go to private schools?

I'm sorry, but that's not really true. I went to a state school that paid my tuition instead of applying to private schools. I have very distinct memories from high school of going to recruitment events held by schools that bragged they were the most expensive (Sarah Lawrence), the name dropping tour guides talking about weekend plans (Georgetown), etc.

You don't have to be explicitly told that you don't belong there. You go, you don't understand their cultural references, your clothes aren't quite good enough, and you and your parents don't know anyone else there.

It's a lot harder then simply burdening yourself with student loan payments for the half of your adult life.

[Kevin Davis]

Natalie, Chris-- I hear where you're coming from, but I don't think it's fair or helpful to perpetuate the myth that private colleges aren't an option if you're from a middle class or working class background.

I met my wife at the beginning of freshman year at Harvard. Her first year's tuition bill was for $900 -- the rest of the tuition was waived, save for loans. (She had also received waivers of all of her college application fees.) This was even before Harvard launched its massive financial aid initiative. That said, her mother picking up that cost was nowhere near an option. Instead, she worked several campus jobs to pay all her costs throughout college.

Was there a class consciousness and associated difficulties? Absolutely. Being the only "poor kid" on a hallway where most students were from very wealthy families and planned overseas jaunts for their school breaks was uncomfortable, sure. But it also presented a tremendous learning opportunity, and was part of an experience she wouldn't trade for the world.

The singular opportunities she got from her undergraduate experience remain, to her, every bit worth what was at times a very difficult and uncomfortable adjustment. I remember long conversations we had during her freshman year about whether she wanted to just give up and transfer to her state's U. Instead, she stuck it out, got to work with and learn from incredible professors, scholars, and students, and, in the process, opened the door to professional opportunities that have made a real difference in her life.

Is taking a journey like that for everyone? No -- but to assume it's not the right choice for anyone is shortsighted.

[chris]

Kevin - Your last post is just an example of personal bias towards your alma mater, which is fine I guess. You say that your wife was trying to decide whether "to just give up and transfer to her state's U." What is your frame of reference for making this statement? How can you be sure that going to an excellent state university like UNC wouldn't be the better choice?

I'm willing to admit that I could have received a better classroom education at a private university. I'm sure the smaller class sizes would have helped a lot. Several of my classes at UNC were taught in a 450-seat auditorium, where there was absolutely no student participation.

On the other hand, I got to live in the dorms, and go to class, with the best students from all over North Carolina. Some of the students from the public schools in poor counties really struggled with the coursework, but I'm glad that our state requires a proportional number of students from each county. UNC could sacrifice diversity in many ways to improve it's academic rankings, but that would take away the true value of the experience. I wasn't born in North Carolina, but after my four undergrad years at UNC, I'm now "from North Carolina". That might not matter much if I lived in a different state, but that shared experience is worth an awful lot when you live here.

I'm glad that more financial aid is now available to middle and working-class families at elite private universities, but it's important to recognize that the conscious decision not to attend these places is perfectly valid. During high school, good students try to earn the best grades possible in order to go to the best college possible, but then the college application process makes one take other issues into consideration, like how much money your parents make. It's not a matter of being "ignorant" of the financial aid and scholarships available, but rather gaining a clearer understanding of social class, and social life, and discovering that the college choice isn't just about academic prestige. I sincerely hope that large numbers of students continue to choose great public universities over private universities, even if money isn't the issue. It's a good thing.

[Kevin Davis]

Chris:

If she were a native North Carolinian it certainly wouldn't have been "giving up," but her home state was not blessed with a strong state university the way NC is. (NC, California, Texas, Michigan, Virginia, perhaps Florida -- all have really first-rate state-funded universities. Her state's would probably not rank anywhere near that category.)

Mind you, and I can't emphasize this enough -- state universities deliver a terrific education at a terrific level of affordability. I'm not criticizing anyone's choice to attend one.

What I am reacting to are the ideas that:

1) Getting financial aid is somehow "begging." High tuition costs are, for middle-income Americans, far less relevant in a world where they're met by strong financial aid. A university does itself as much good as it does students by offering aid; a student body that isn't diverse and representative of the world at large is, to my mind, not the most conducive environment to what a liberal arts education is intended to be.

2) The idea that if you don't have money, you won't be able to be comfortable at a private university and therefore shouldn't attend. Sorry, but I don't buy that, from the personal experience of people I knew (this anecdote being one.) Is that discomfort there? Yes, but it's no different than what a person from an impoverished background would face upon, say, graduating from a public university and then entering work life. (Alfred Lubrano's book "Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams" is a good introduction to the subject.)

[chris]

Kevin - I have no doubt that I could have been "comfortable at a private university". A good public university was simply a better choice. I'm also skeptical about whether all this financial aid is really going to improve economic diversity on private university campuses, but I guess we'll have to see what happens. I think that it would be better to just lower the tuition for everybody, and try to take family wealth out of the admissions equation as much as possible.

Incidentally, I apply the same criticism to UNC. I think that UNC has been harmed by the tuition inflation over the past ten years alone, which must be around 200-300%. Sure, UNC is offering financial aid to anybody who needs it, but it's just not the same. There is something slightly "un-American" about having to ask for help paying the bill, and I think that most people will avoid this if possible. In my opinion, this is a good thing, but the percentage of American families that can pay a full tuition bill on their own must be decreasing rapidly, so perhaps financial aid will become a "uniquely American" facet of life.

[Bull City Rising]

Chris,

Didn't mean to imply that you said you wouldn't be "comfortable at a private university." That statement was made by Natalie, not you. I was responding to difference concerns both of you raised in your post.

Personally (and speaking from an alumnus perspective, not on behalf of employer, etc. -- this isn't an issue I deal with professionally), I don't have a problem with the high financial aid/high tuition system. Frankly, it seems to provide a mechanism akin to progressive income taxation, by allowing those with means to pay a higher price for education than those without.

I would agree that I have a much, much greater issue with public universities taking this approach than private universities. Private colleges are welcome to decide that they want to create variable pricing by family income and to use high tuition/high aid to do it. On the other hand, public universities have a mandate to be accessible to all regardless of ability to pay. I read the "regardless of ability to pay" in their historic mission to be at odds with any form of price discrimination.

[mike]

So UNC is sort of an exception is how prestigious of an institution it is. I don't think there would be any reason to go to a place like Georgetown or Northwestern over UNC. However, for all the good and bad this implies, Harvard is a different matter. I think being at a place known throughout the entire planet as synonomous with academic excellence and having the world's best minds around you can open doors to career paths that otherwise would not have been opened. Again the whole experience of being around so many wealthly and priviledged kids is not for everyone.