Values over dollars

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As financial markets remain in crisis, colleges and universities around the country are cutting spending, delaying projects and holding off on new hires. Similar to the indefinite postponement of Wesleyan’s new science center, Amherst and Williams Colleges are both delaying new building and renovation projects. Further, according to The New York Times, many experts maintain that as investments shrink and donations fall, institutions will be forced to cut back on financial aid. The relative share of financial aid that is contributed by government programs is also declining.

Amid this crisis, Wesleyan has just begun a new fundraising campaign with a goal of raising $550 to $650 million. The last campaign, which lasted nine years, raised a total of $281 million. From that, $80 million was allotted to financial aid. According to Vice President for University Relations Barbara-Jan Wilson, at least $200 million of the new campaign’s total would go towards financial aid. She further estimates that half the funds will by raised by 2011. This means they hope to raise about $205 million in three years.

We wonder if this new target amount is realistic: just as schools have less money, families need more. However, we applaud the University for setting such ambitious goals, particularly during a period when school endowments are feeling more pressure than ever. The University has committed to not only maintaining financial aid goals, but increasing the overall percentage of the fundraising target that will go towards financial aid.

Wesleyan seems to be thinking about now, but also about the future. The University is currently in the process of trying to endow the entire scholarship program, which would mean that scholarship funding would come from long-term endowment sources instead of the more variable Wesleyan Annual Fund, which is more susceptible to influence from economic conditions and other outside factors. This is also the University’s first year to participate in QuestBridge, a non-profit program which links motivated low-income students with the country’s top universities. They hope to have 10 QuestBridge students in the class of 2013. Further, most of these students will qualify for University grants to replace their loans, according to Roth’s grant policy for families earning less than $40,000 yearly.

It is not clear whether or not the University will be able to meet all its stated scholarship and fundraising goals. Still, the fact that Wesleyan has made tangible, solid commitments to provide low-income students with an education is admirable at any time, no less so during an economic crisis when cutbacks for most universities are the norm.

  • A. Parent

    One of the comments at http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2009/01/fiscal-therapy.html
    suggests colleges are really charging what the market will bear:
    “(1) The cost of attending college in 18 years for little Johnnie who was born on New Year’s Day (based on an annual inflation rate of 8%) will be $63,500. That is for the first year only. (2) The annual increases in tuition/housing/etc that colleges claim is necessary is pure bunk. Every financial statement I’ve examined as a CPA shows surplus year after year by colleges. Case in point: Drew University in NJ had an excess of $4.6 million dollars for FY 6/2006. For fiscal year 2007, they raised tuition/housing/books 5%. The University of Delaware had a surplus of $6.3 million in 2005. For fiscal year 2006, they raised tuition/housing/books 5%. Why?
    This is in addition to the collective trillions in endowment funds (and other tax exempt “slush” funds such as the ridiculous food plans where students end up having pizza parties for their entire dorm because the “purchase points” expire in less than 3 months).
    Rutgers University – with 84 board members (we have no idea what they do or what their perks are) – has $2 billion in excess funds – $1 billion which is not in fixed assets.
    (3) The gross and disgusting behavior of our supposed representative in education who allowed the loan companies to keep their illegal loan “fees” from colleges with nothing more than a slap on the hand. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars that could have gone to help students.
    And last but not least (4) the menage a trois between the colleges, the loan industry – especially the private loans which are set up so that they are NEVER paid off – and the system we call capitalism. Which should probably be renamed “Held Captive”.

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