Columbia Announces Sweeping Financial Aid Reforms

In the wake of similar reforms by other Ivy League schools, Columbia announced a package of broad financial-aid policy enhancements Tuesday morning.

The much-anticipated reforms will convert all “need-based loans” to grants for students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and increase the School of General Studies’ total financial-aid budget by about $1 million annually.

Starting next year, SEAS and CC students from families with incomes below $60,000 per year will not have to pay for any aspect of college—tuition, room, or board. The University will substitute all loans with grants for CC and SEAS students, a change that could add up to $20,000 for any student over a four-year span.

The changes will also affect families making between $60,000 and $100,000 per year. Such families, a University press release said, “will see a significant reduction” in parental contribution toward tuition.

"Through the replacement of need-based loans with grants, a student from a family with an income of $150,000 who is eligible for financial aid may receive as much as $5,000 per year in aid instead of a loan of that amount," the statement said.

In a phone interview Monday, University President Lee Bollinger said Columbia was motivated to action by the need to make Columbia more accessible to a diverse group of students, as well as competition among leading universities.

“The principle is that we should try to do as much as we possibly can to help people from families with low-income and moderate, middle-class incomes to be able to attend Columbia,” Bollinger said. “This is part of a great American commitment to mobility across socioeconomic lines and we have always, as a university, been committed to it.”

Bollinger said the changes will also allow Columbia to compete for lower-income students. “We want to make sure that students who want to come to Columbia but are attracted to other institutions because of financial considerations will still choose Columbia,” he said.

The announcement comes after a stretch of high-profile financial aid reform announcements likened by some to an “Ivy League arms race.” While Columbia administrators said they had already been discussing financial-aid changes, Harvard’s December announcement that it would charge families making $120,000 to $180,000 per year only 10 percent of their annual income led to similar announcements from other Ivy League schools, pressuring Columbia to quickly revamp its own policy. The announcement follows the most recent policy change that switched loans to grants for students whose families make less than $50,000 annually.

Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks said he, like Bollinger, believes the plan will allow Columbia to keep its competitive edge of “attracting students from diverse backgrounds that Columbia has always been known for—the gritty, urban Ivy school.”

Dirks pointed to “financial-aid poster boy” John Kluge, CC ’37—the donor who pledged over $200 million specifically for CC financial aid last year and—as an example of a student Columbia recruited by matching an aid offer seventy years ago.

In addition to larger changes, the University will substitute work-study requirements with grants for students studying abroad. All aid recipients participating in unpaid internships or community service may also apply for work-study exemptions.

The University delayed the announcement, which was originally planned for last week, because of a previously scheduled trustee meeting over the weekend.

“The plan proposed by the president was endorsed by the trustees over the weekend,” said Scott Norum, chief administrative officer of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “There were no changes to the specific enhancements that were proposed, which was great.”

Discussion leading up to the financial-aid announcement sparked a strong reaction among GS students, who currently receive mostly merit-based financial aid with an emergency fund, leaving many in serious financial straits. Last Tuesday night, the General Studies Student Council unanimously passed a resolution urging the University to increase aid to GS students.

Under the new plan, which will affect about half of current GS scholarship recipients, financial-aid packages will be determined by three criteria: demonstrated need, current loan burden, and a Grade Point Average of over 3.0. The release said GS Dean Peter Awn announced a 17 percent increase in the school’s total aid budget, totaling “slightly more than $1 million annually” to finance the enhancements.

Annual fund gifts from alumni and permanent endowments will chiefly cover the cost of these changes—a significant burden for Columbia. Remaining funding will come from fundraising, an annual endowment-spending rate increase, and operating revenue. The University hopes to raise more than $440 million for undergraduate financial-aid funding.

Bollinger said the announcement is not the end of Columbia’s efforts to become more affordable. “It doesn’t complete what we can or will do,” he said.

joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com