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ALUMNI CORNER

Financial Aid: A Columbia Tradition

By Brian Krisberg ’81
First Vice President, Columbia College Alumni Association

Financial aid is a popular topic in the media. Newspapers and magazines are writing about it more often than in years past. Peer institutions (including, especially, Princeton and Harvard) are getting attention for their generosity. Some colleges are using financial aid as an admissions device to compete for gifted students. Where, you might ask, does Columbia stand on financial aid?

Columbia College has had a long-standing commitment to financial aid that dates back to the 1960s, when the College embarked on a policy of supporting intelligent and needy students at a time when many colleges did not. Through the years, the College frequently has ranked at or near the top of the Ivy League in the percentage of enrolled students receiving “grant” aid (financial aid comprises two main components: “self-help,” which combines loans and work-study income, and “grant” aid). This commitment is particularly noteworthy when one considers Columbia’s endowment during much of this period, which was relatively small compared to peer institutions. The percentage of enrolled College students receiving aid in the form of Columbia grants since that time generally has been between 38–44 percent.

Financial aid came naturally to the College because of certain unique aspects of our community. The College always has taken great pride in being a place where less well-off students feel comfortable and supported. Further, the College has been a top choice destination for children of families whose parents didn’t attend college or families looking into selective colleges for the first time. The College, in short, is not an elitist sanctuary; to the contrary, it provides a welcoming environment for students from all backgrounds.

Columbia’s tradition of supporting students through financial aid is under pressure.

Today, Columbia’s tradition of supporting students through financial aid is under pressure, pressure that takes a number of forms. Statistics indicate that the debt burden of a student on financial aid graduating from Harvard or Princeton is roughly one-half of the debt load of a Columbia College graduate. Surveys conducted by the College of applicants to other colleges who needed financial aid and chose not to apply to Columbia indicate that the perception of higher cost at Columbia was one of the principal reasons they chose not to apply in the first place. While one-third of the College students on financial aid continue to come from families with incomes of $45,000 or less, Harvard and Princeton have received attention in the media for their extra efforts to target these candidates. The College identified the consequent issue of financial aid competitiveness several years ago and now has the evidence to back it up.

It is clear that the pressures described above, if not addressed, will damage the College’s ability to compete with other Ivy schools for the strongest applicants needing financial aid. Ultimately, the College’s current standing as one of the most selective colleges in the United States may be compromised. Faced with this reality, the University is planning a campaign — the first part of a larger capital campaign that will be announced in 2006 — to permanently endow financial aid at the College. You will hear much more about this in the months and years to come.

Columbia uses, on a relative basis, a larger portion of tuition revenues, rather than endowment, to pay for financial aid when compared to its competitors. Annual giving also plays a significant part in covering the cost of financial aid. Funding more financial aid from a significantly enlarged endowment for this purpose will permit the College to enhance the levels of financial aid and apply released tuition revenues to building the faculty and staff and improving the quality of facilities and services.

Notwithstanding the College’s oft-stated and long-standing commitment to need-blind admissions and full-need financial aid, some alumni or parents (albeit a minority) may question this emphasis on enlarging the pool of funds available for financial aid and endowing financial aid permanently. They may cite the value of maintaining a job during their college years or question whether financial aid undercuts a student’s need to take responsibility for his or her college years. Or they themselves were not on financial aid.

My response is, first, that enhanced financial aid at peer schools has continued to leave students with an appropriate responsibility, through self-help, to contribute to their education, and Columbia will do the same. Second, we need to consider the key role of a great college within a great research university in the U.S. educational system. What is the fundamental purpose of a place such as Columbia, with its extraordinary breadth and depth of course offerings and the chances it provides our students to meet smart and engaging individuals?

The purpose is, in short, to create opportunities for future generations based on merit and talent, and not based on lineage or family income. Columbia’s tradition of supporting financial aid and commitment to financial aid as an agent of social mobility and change is a fundamental part of this. The College prepares its undergraduates for leadership roles by offering them the opportunity to study and live with, and learn from, a mixture of students that reflects the society they will inhabit. In this respect, all College students benefit from the financial aid Columbia provides. Viewed in this manner, improving the financial aid outlook is an essential policy objective of the College administration that all members of the College community should support.

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