Northwestern ending loans, moving to straight scholarships
In today's Chicago Tribune, there's a headline with great news on student debt. Northwestern has decided that for students needing financial aid, they will now receive grants and scholarships instead of loans.
LINK: Northwestern students qualifying for aid will get scholarships & grants instead of loans
Northwestern University students who qualify for financial aid no longer will have to borrow to pay for their education, part of a plan announced Thursday to make the school more affordable and prevent students from being saddled with crippling debt.
Starting next fall, freshmen who ordinarily would have to take out loans will instead receive a combination of grants and scholarships, along with earnings from work-study and summer jobs, to cover their expenses. Current undergraduate students who already have $20,000 or more in loans will have that debt capped starting next fall, and receive a scholarship instead of having to borrow more.
Around half of all Northwestern students qualify for financial aid. Full-time tuition for undergraduates in 2015-16 is $48,624. Room and board, fees and average costs for books and personal expenses tack on almost $20,000 more.
This is great news for Northwestern students. I'd love to see Michigan move to doing something similar for qualified students. Back in the day (late 70's), my tuition, room, board, books, and fees for a year at Michigan were under 4k. I was able to pay for school between a few grants, scholarships, work-study, and summer jobs. That is completely impossible now. In today's environment, I wouldn't have ended up at Michigan. My daughter enlisted in the Navy several years back partially to avoid incurring student loans. I don't want to see great students turned away to lesser schools just because of the financial cost.
Didn't the Ivy League do this recently?
And for the football team this could have an added benefit to their walk on program. Why play on scholarship at CMU when you can get a need based scholarship to Northwestern and be a preferred walk-on.
Great point about football. I hadn't thought about that, but for some students, that could make a huge difference. If they came from humble circumstances, were admitted to Michigan in the normal pool of students, and needed financial aid, they would receive it and be able to walk on the team.
Somehow, i suspect that the NCAA would find a way to rule against that. But still, a great idea.
The Ivies started doing this many years ago, led by Yale if memory serves but Harvard followed close behind and I believe most if not all of the others fell in line not long after. I'm too lazy to Google the exact number, but a large proportion of at least Harvard/Yale students pay no tuition at all.
EDIT: OK, did some Googling, these are noteworthy schools that cover all or virtually all tuition for lower-income students--
Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, North Carolina, Duke, Vanderbilt
I think virtually every student accepted to Harvard pays no tuition (I believe that is correct). But their endownment (about $40 billion) is larger than that jiggly girl in the gif in the other thread, so it's no skin off their scrotum...
My brother was paying $50k+ a year for his daughter @ Harvar5d and he was far from wealthy. She finished 5 years or so ago.
Wow, your brother is a better man than I...
Yes, better than me. Both my kids got into Case Western ($50k+). My daughter got into Case for Engineering but not U of M. My Son got into Illinois ($50k out of state) but not U of M - and I'm a second generation alumni - my son transferred into Michigan as a sophomore graduated in 2015 and was just excepted into Michigan's SNRE Grad school. Am I a little bit bitter, yes, yes I am. Being an alumni does not mean crap as far as I can tell when it comes to admissions. I won't go into a long political rant here.
There was no way I was paying $50k a year when there are good in-state, private and out of state colleges for $25k a year.
My son got into U of M, but was wait listed at Case Western. Go figure.
not sure where you heard / read that but its false
Almost all of them do this, but Princeton was the first, starting this kind of program in 2000-2001.
Nearly $70,000 for a single year??? Good Lord...
For out-of-state tuition, room, board, books, and fees at Michigan, the cost is more than $57,000. Northwestern is more expensive, but honestly, the difference between $60 and $70 thousand? Not that much. If you can afford 60, you'll find a way to pay 70. The sad reality is that both figures are prohibitive for most families in the US. In 2010, about 55% of all households (not individuals) in the US earned less in a year than it costs to attend Michigan for a single year. I would love to know the annual income figures of the families with students currently enrolled at Michigan. I'm thinking the the social class and household income of current students has risen massively since the time I was a student. I don't think that's good for the country, or for UofM. A diverse student body, socio-economically, racially, politically, religiously, etc., is a good thing. Which is why I love what Northwestern is doing so much.
I'm sure the income differences must be extreme.
I will say, though, that offering to pay for tuition for under-represented groups (whether it socially, racially, financially, etc.) and actually doing it and admitting these students are two different things. The profile they have for 2014 shows a school with an incoming class that is 86% Caucasian or "Asian American". And their little map for where students come from rely heavily on the Northeast, California, and a couple other major population centers. Not sure about sexual orientation and other factors; I'm guessing those aren't going to be made publicly available as easily. UM isn't any better, though because they are a state school there are probably different dynamics.
My greater point isn't to knock NW, but if all they are doing is telling children of a family with one lawyer or doctor he/she doesn't have to worry about tuition because they'll get subsidized from families with two lawyers/doctors, that doesn't feel as much like real progress.
Anyway, I'm guessing this goes by the folks who qualify for federal subsidized loans via FAFSA - which the income ceiling for that isn't super high. My family's income was probably at the "one lawyer" level (with two college students) and the grants and subsidized loans I qualified for for grad school covered less than a quarter of tuition.
Unless they are paying for everyone's unsubsidized federal loans - but I think that would cover almost every student, so I doubt it.
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It wasn't intended to be scare quotes; it's more that they decided to lump what I assume are Indian and Asian students into a single category, even though encompasses a massive number of different people. Of course, they lump caucasians all together, so whatever.
It was my understanding that they were simply going to cover any undergraduate student who would require a loan with a grant or work-study. And lots of private schools have really high threshholds already; I believe Harvard charges a sliding scale for tuition for students from household incomes north of $250k/yr.
And based on the average incoming scores and the demographic breakdown (as well as family and friends who have gone to NW and similar schools), I just wonder how many truly need-based students will be admitted and can take advantage of this.
I agree with your thinking. School is largely unattainable for many.
My eldest daughter will actually be entering Northwestern as a freshman in the fall. (I told her it was basically the Michigan of Chicago, so it was OK... :) Plus, more opportunities to root against MSU and OSU.) I am very curious to see how this all plays out. We are in a good financial situation, so I suspect this will not mean much different for us.
The key, however, is that we are at a point where the value of a traditional college education might not be worth what it costs. EXCEPT for the fact that it is still the box that must be checked for many, many jobs (or for graduate school). And for those that can't afford it, there is an immense debt burden.
My hope is that the best students get their first choice of school and can find a way to attend that school without building up a mountain of debt. Not graduating with a "college degree mortgage" is a much better result for these kids.
but the logical conclusion is that fewer poor students will be going to Northwestern.
While I applaud the effort. Couldn't they look at capping tuition and/or maybe tring to lower their cost?
Thats too hard and doesn't come with the virtue signalling benefits.
This allows them to focus their efforts and resources on studet actua it. It kind of is a progressive tax system in some ways (which is a bad thing in some people's eyes) but does focus more resources on the poor...
Progressive does not have to be punitive?
Higher Ed, teachers and administrators alike, love their political virtue signalling.
The idea is to have everyone who attends pay what they can afford without incurring excessive debt.
If you can already afford to pay for school without incurring debt, then great. If you couldn't afford to do so before, now you can.
I've been asking this question for more than a decade. The fact is, until incentives for administrators are somehow changed, this won't happen. As it is, the incentives are all in place to INCREASE costs -- they get bigger budgets, better offices, nicer facilities, etc., etc. It is messed up. But they have a product (the diploma) that is virtually a job requirement and, therefore, one for which people will pay a lot.
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Hello Joey!
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Bosa. Apparently, he ranted in a similar vain a few days back.
Unfortunately only really well-off schools can do this but it great when they actually do. It actually helps the people that need it rather than the people that don't.
That is always the argument against free college education, I won't throw my opinion in here, in that the students who can afford school benefit more than the students that cannot afford school.
I hope Michigan can one day do this but in the meantime I will focus my donations to Financial Aid for students.
yeah much more difficult for public schools to do the same. solid idea though for schools capable of it. im all for logical solutions to decreasing cost of education and student debt.
by the way, can anyone offer an accurate definition of "undocumented student"? is that a reference to illegal aliens? cant imagine its that simple - bc how would one residing in the us illegally not only attend college but also receive aid in the process? not trying to get political at all, just curious
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I would argue that ~$49k a year to attend your school is also a bit excessive. I applaud NW for trying to help students out, but if 4 years at your school costs at least $200k, there is some belt-tightening elsewhere that could be done.
Oh I know. It is cheaper for in-state students, though, despite UM barely getting any direct financial support from the state. My greater point is that when a school touts its charity in paying for services they themselves price out, it becomes a bit funny math.
This is true, but also Northwestern is a private school and therfore doesnt recieve any state funding. It would be great if instate tuiton was very cheap, to support in-state familys and their childeren.
The elitism is strong with Stephen R Kass.
but comments like RKass's are part of the behavior that some UM alums exhibit that turns people off.l(unfairly in my book). Possessing a college degree from Harvard, Yale, Michigan, etc..does not make you better than someone who lacks even a GED. In this era of egalitarianism this ought to be obvious to everyone.
A college degree indicates only that someone had the diligence to earn a diploma. As Donald Trump so obnoxiously shows even an Ivy education can't prevent a natural born idiot from fully realizing his ability.
I'm sure I am elitist about Michigan. It was a great school for me, and I was privileged to go there. While it doesn't "matter" where you went to school, some schools are much better than others. And I do believe that there are different "levels" of schools out there.
- I would put the most of the Ivy League, Stanford, Chicago, maybe Northwestern, at the elite level.
- Maybe a step back, I'd put Michigan, ND, Texas, Duke, UNC, UCLA.
- Another step back, Illinois, Wisconsin, a good part of the Big 10, a good part of the PAC10, etc.
This is completely arbitary, and not researched out. But I know and have experienced that there are a host of colleges out there where the ability to think and reason and write is significantly lower than the schools listed above. Yes, you can succeed at any school you go to. But I'd love to see talented and gifted students have the opportunity to go to a school where the quality of the education is on a par with the ability those students have.
Some of the best engineers at my plant either have an associates or had a terrible GPA coming out of school. On the flip side, I've hired from 4.0 GPA grads from one of the better universities in my state and they sucked frankly. A degree is only a starting point
In that context, it absolutely does matter where people go to school - your hit rate for good hiring tends to be better from a school like Michigan than from a lower ranked institution.
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But as you surely know you can get an elite talent from 2 or 3 star guys.
If I am employer I would need more than just a name on a degree. I need a track record of performance.No attribute is a better indicator of ability than experience. College can't give you that.
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