School of General Studies administrators and the General Studies Student Council are divided over certain aspects of a recent GSSC resolution calling upon the University to resolve disparities in financial aid.
The resolution, passed in Tuesday’s GSSC meeting, called on the University to help alleviate the financial burdens incurred by GS students taking out loans. The push for an increase in GS financial aid comes in anticipation of a University financial-aid package whose announcement is expected early next week.
Council members claimed that the average GS student graduates with more than $60,000 in loan debts, while the typical Columbia College student graduates with about $16,358. While GS administrative spokesman and Dean Curtis Rodgers said that the administration supported the ideas behind Tuesday’s resolution, some were concerned about its stated ambitions, the accuracy of quoted facts, and the methods employed by council members to promote the effort.
“The call to action that the University ‘do the right thing’ and rectify the current financial aid disparity, that’s a pretty broad statement,” Rodgers said. “How one goes about rectifying the disparities, I guess that’s the heart of the issue.”
As most students are labeled of “independent” age, the GS financial aid structure differs from that of Columbia’s other undergraduate schools. The different means of calculating a separate system can lead to difficulties in coordinating with the aid structures of the other undergraduate institutions.
“There’s a different basis for the way in which GS financial aid works,” Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks said in an interview last week. He explained: “They don’t need to show parental assets and income when they fill out the FAFSA. The results are different calculations.”
Dirks also said that while it was not possible to move restricted endowments from one school to another, administrators were working with GS Dean Peter Awn to enhance the school’s financial-aid outlook.
But GSSC President Niko Cunningham voiced frustration with what he saw as a long process for financial aid in which GS has been largely ignored.
“GS has waited in the queue,” Cunningham said. “The central administration has not made GS a priority.”
“The resolution is something we support,” Rodgers said. But he added that the administration is unsure about some of the details, noting, “We’re a little worried about the accuracy.”
Rodgers said that the resolution gave a somewhat skewed portrayal of the basis of aid at GS—while it is primarily a merit-based system, financial needs are taken into consideration and do influence the amount of aid granted, as opposed to council assertions that the system was strictly merit-based.
There have also been concerns about the data obtained from an unscientific GSSC survey conducted last week that polled students on the extent of their debt as well as council assertions surrounding the manner in which financial aid is currently awarded to GS students.
An online survey invited students to answer questions last week about the extent of their loan debt. The self-reporting technique of the survey, as Rodgers pointed out and GSSC members acknowledged, resulted in inherent statistical inaccuracies. Council members agreed that an official statistician would be needed to conduct a more accurate survey.
“At the end of the day, a third of our school responded. Is that statistically relevant? It absolutely is relevant,” Cunningham said, and stressed that the survey was qualified as being self-reported.
While divisions between students and administrators have surfaced over details, all players share the broad goal of increasing financial aid at GS. “How do we provide more aid to meet the need over time ... that’s what we’ve been focused on,” Rodgers said. “That’s where we’re definitely in line with what the GSSC is putting out there.”
Joy Resmovits contributed to this article.