With recent changes in the financial aid programs at Harvard and Yale, a new question faces the rest of the Ivy League: now that two of the three Ivy universities included in the “Big Three”—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton— are more affordable than their competitors, will the advantage they already hold in recruiting be compounded?
The Big Three
A little boy, whose older brother will soon attend Cornell, looks at a circle of 10 to 15 soon-to-be college freshmen and asks each one where he or she is going. As these students give the names of universities such as Penn, UCLA, and Northwestern, the kid does not seem to react, quickly moving from person to person. Then he turns to the politely smiling Indian girl and asks his question. “Yale” is her reply. Suddenly he stops and stares at her as he grunts a cross between “whoa” and “wow.” The rest of the table laughs. This is the world of the Big Three.
“By name recognition, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton usually trump admission to other schools,” said Caesar Storlazzi, director of Student Financial Services at Yale.
While the Ivy League includes eight universities, these three are set apart. One reason may be their ability to spend with their respective endowments. Harvard’s endowment dwarfs that of any other university in the country. As of last July, its endowment was nearly $35 million. Yale and Princeton come in second and fourth respectively, both topping the $15 million mark.
With the exalted status of the three come benefits in the arena of recruiting.
“When we are looking at a player and find out she is looking at some of the Big Three, we find out early on if we are the first choice or one of the backups,” said Paul Nixon, the head coach of Columbia’s women’s basketball team. “If we are second, we move on.”
Nixon said that he rarely succeeds in courting players for whom Columbia is not a first choice. While Columbia has benefits that other schools do not, such as New York City and the only all-girls school that plays Division I athletics, it is still competing with Harvard and Yale.
“It is not a real secret that Harvard and Yale have the strongest name recognition among the Ivy League with Princeton up with them,” Nixon said.
New Policies
Given this already built-in advantage, Harvard and Yale instituted monumental changes in their aid policies to attract lower-income students.
“Yale continually reviews financial aid policy with an ongoing committee and an ongoing discussion,” Storlazzi said. “We listen carefully to student groups at the Yale college council and try to take the pulse of the students thinkings and concerns. The big one is the cumulative debt levels when students graduate. We have been thinking creatively to adjust and improve what we do.”
Harvard’s changes came first as they made tuition for families earning less than $60,000 free, tuition for families earning between $120,000 and $180,000 10 percent of their income, and families in between $60,000 and $120,000 somewhere between zero and 10 percent of their income. Yale followed Harvard’s lead by enacting similar policies, while the rest of the Ivy League has done little in terms of financial aid changes thus far.
“I hope the message increases diversity and the number of low-income families,” Storlazzi said. He said he expected Princeton to follow with comparable reforms, but that it was doubtful any other Ivies could afford such dramatic changes. Columbia has the next largest endowment of any Ivy after “The Big Three,” but its endowment is less than half as large as Princeton’s and roughly one-fifth the size of Harvard’s.
Recruitment
With the offer of a more affordable education and the chance to go to one of “The Big Three,” some believe recruiting for the other Ivies will get even harder.
When asked about the effects of the new changes combined with the name recognition, Storlazzi responded, “I don’t know how you fight that.”
“Dartmouth is a great school,” he said. “There are students for whom it’s the right choice, but we challenge their recruitment of students.”
Storlazzi said he thought the new aid policies would make it easier for coaches to talk to families and that it could make students choose Yale or Harvard over other Ivies.
However, Storlazzi pointed out that recruiting will only get easier in sports where financial aid is a big factor.
“Football tends to be a more blue collar sport,” he said. “The proportion of football players on financial aid is higher than the number of tennis players. It’s a cultural thing.”
James Jones, the head coach of men’s basketball at Yale, said that money is always a part of the recruitment process.
“We want to recruit kids who haven’t thought about going to the Ivy League because they do not want to burden their parent,” Jones said.
However, both Jones and Nixon question whether the new policies will actually affect recruiting.
Nixon believes Harvard and Yale have all the advantages they need. His first reaction to hearing about the aid policy changes: “the rich get richer.”
“How Harvard, Yale, and Princeton structure financial aid doesn’t change who we target,” he added. “In my experience, we don’t do well in recruiting kids who are just looking to go to one of the Ivies.”
Jones doubts that more affordable schooling will make Yale more attractive for other reasons. He, like Nixon, views the college selection process as a matter of the right fit. He added that finances are not initially relevant in the recruiting process.
“You are only looking at a small portion of kids that can get into Yale,” Jones said. “We do not know financially about the kids until further down the road.”
Jones was also quick to point out that there have always been differences in policies.
“There have always been different policies,” he said. “We have given financial aid packages that can be varyingly different.” He added that other schools can find packages that will attract the students they want.
So while the name Yale may always leave that little boy speechless, there is no unanimous opinion as to whether the new policies will awe new young children across the nation.