The Online Reflector

Chicago Tribune
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Harvard University recently acknowledged what many parents, who get sticker shock every time the tuition bill arrives, already know. Private colleges and even some public universities are so expensive that even the affluent upper middle class is struggling to pay the bills.

Harvard and others have been gradually throttling back on what they expect many parents to pay. Harvard is already picking up the tab for families earning less than $60,000.

Recently Harvard announced that it will significantly expand financial aid to students from families earning as much as $180,000 a year. Costs will be limited to about 10 percent of income, meaning that students from those families would pay a maximum of $18,000. That’s a large discount from the full annual cost of more than $45,000.

Now Yale has followed suit, declaring that it would increase the amount of money it spent from its endowment, expanding financial aid to low- and middle-income students and to students from families earning as much as $200,000 a year. Other schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore, are scrambling to eliminate loans from their aid packages and replace them with grants, which will help middle and upper-middle income families.

“People were voting with their feet,” Harvard’s Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons said. “It was pretty clear that we were missing out on some pretty exciting students.”

According to Yale President Richard C. Levin, the reason for the recent generosity is congressional pressure. Lawmakers have been threatening to force schools to spend at least 5 percent of their endowment funds every year, as private foundations are required to do. In January, the Senate Finance Committee ratcheted up the pressure, demanding detailed information from the nation’s wealthiest colleges on tuition hikes, financial aid and how they managed their endowments.

Whatever the motives, it’s hard to argue with moves to ease the financial pressure on parents of students at Harvard, Yale and elsewhere. Many other universities around the country are now hearing a theme from parents: Where’s ours?

“I don’t doubt that when families talk to the aid office, they’re going to say, hey, Harvard thinks we need this much,” said Ted O’Neill, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago. “And you say less. How do you justify that? And our response would be, they’re rewarding students beyond what they need. But boy, a lot of people are going to be angry and lot of people will be disappointed.”

Calculating what’s fair and what is gouging in the world of college aid is not a task for the faint-hearted. It all comes down to the calculation of “need.” Schools look at a family’s income and assets and decide whether they need financial aid. Typically, families earning six-figure incomes don’t qualify.

In a recent visit to the Chicago Tribune editorial board, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings commended Harvard for its move. But she followed with a far more important point.

“We have to get many, many more particularly poor and minority kids, not only in and out of high school but in and out of college.” she said. “How are we going to make college affordable, accessible, attainable and high quality for the vast majority of Americans?”

She was talking not about those who feel the pinch of private college tuition, real as that may be. But of all those parents and students who struggle with much lower tuition bills from smaller universities.

(c) 2007, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services