Harvard’s Aid to Middle Class Pressures Rivals
By JONATHAN D. GLATER

Just days after Harvard University announced this month that it would significantly expand financial aid to students from families earning as much as $180,000 a year, William G. Durden, president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., got a query from a student’s father, asking whether the college would follow Harvard’s lead.

“He even said, ‘I know this costs a lot of money, but you should do it anyway,’ ” Dr. Durden said. The president replied that Dickinson, a small liberal arts college where the full annual cost of tuition, fees, room and board nears $45,000, did not have the money to match Harvard’s largess.

Because of Harvard, Dr. Durden said ruefully in recalling the exchange, “a lot of us are going to be under huge pressure to do these things that we just can’t do.”

By substantially discounting costs for all but the very wealthiest students, Harvard shook up the landscape of college pricing. Like Dr. Durden, officials of other colleges say its move will create intense pressure on them to give more aid to upper-middle-class students and will open the door to more parental price haggling.

Officials at colleges without anything like Harvard’s $35 billion endowment say a rush to give tuition discounting to the middle and upper middle class at institutions like theirs could end up shifting financial aid from low-income students to wealthier, make pricing seem even more arbitrary and create pressure to raise full tuition to pay for all the assistance.

Some academics who study higher education predict that Harvard’s decision may even reduce economic diversity at Harvard itself, even though the university already allows any admitted student from a family earning $60,000 or less to attend virtually free of charge.

“It will educate those parents into thinking, ‘Eighteen thousand dollars a year is what we ought to be paying; why should we have to pay more than that?’ ” said John Strassburger, president of Ursinus College, where full costs are currently $43,160.

To read the full article at The New York Times.

Find out what Dickinson is doing to reach high school students.

Colleges turn to Web tools in hunt for '08 freshmen
Interactive sites aid recruiters, school-shoppers
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff

Once dominated by glossy brochures, college fairs, and campus tours, the college admissions landscape is rapidly shifting toward online social media, as schools blanket the Internet with podcasts, blogs, and videos to recruit wired high school students.

With virtual campus tours, live chats with college students, professors, and admissions officers, and videos about campus life, colleges and universities are increasingly turning to interactive and multimedia technology as recruiting tactics to connect with prospective students who are far more likely to scroll down a Web page than thumb through a college viewbook.

Think of it as College Admissions 2.0, college officials and consultants say.

Some colleges, such as Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, have launched marketing videos on YouTube, where Dickinson's president even demonstrates how to tie a bowtie. Wellesley College's website provides a glimpse of the campus from a helicopter. Simmons College admissions counselors have Facebook and MySpace pages and regularly correspond with prospective students and applicants via instant- and text-message.

Read the full article in the Boston Globe.

Read President Bill Durden's and VP for Enrollment Bob Massa's response to well-endowed institutions replacing student loans with instituional grants and discounted tution in, "Wealthy Colleges'Largess Draws Rebuke" by Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews.

Monday, January 7, 2008; B02

Harvard and other wealthy universities have won praise in recent weeks for initiatives to cut costs sharply for their least affluent students. But college officials and experts in the Washington area and elsewhere have begun to complain that those well-endowed schools are playing a rich man's game that does little for the vast majority of students who can't afford rising tuition bills.

Although they applaud any financial relief for needy college students, these higher education officials say Harvard's largess puts more pressure on less affluent schools to raise tuition to support similar aid and draws attention away from other approaches -- such as sharing costs and reducing waste -- that might bring the benefits of lower tuition to more colleges and more students.

The recent movement to cut tuition, room and board by "the super-wealthy colleges and universities seems to be a whole lot of posturing among the mega-privileged," said William G. Durden, president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and Robert J. Massa, Dickinson's vice president for enrollment, in a recent statement. "It is irresponsible in the long run and will drive up costs and subsequently -- for most of us -- tuition."

The debate between the haves and the have-nots of higher education over rising tuition has been muted over the years. But the decision of some prestigious universities to substitute grants for loans for low-income students and Harvard's Dec. 10 announcement that it will reduce costs for families with annual incomes as high as $180,000 a year have brought the fight into the open. Under Harvard's plan, families earning between $60,000 and $120,000 will pay a small percentage of their annual income for tuition, room and board, rising to 10 percent for those earning between $120,000 and $180,000.

Massa, of Dickinson, has been particularly critical of the merit scholarship competition that leads many private schools to discount tuition to attract the best students, even those who can afford to pay the full price. Massa has pointed to progress in cutting back his merit scholarship costs, but some critics note that his school and its competitors have not stopped such practices altogether.

"Colleges like Dickinson are forced to keep up with the Joneses by maintaining first-class dorms, gyms, dining halls and other amenities," said Joie Jager-Hyman, author of the upcoming college admissions book "Fat Envelope Frenzy."

Parents might have to change their attitude about expensive extras if the problem is to be solved, said Boyle, the College Parents of America president. "Our message to schools should be that we care about the quality of the words spoken in the classroom, not the grade of carpet on the floor of the classroom," he said.

To read the complete Washington Post article

Harvard?s Aid to Middle Class Pressures Rivals
By JONATHAN D. GLATER

Just days after Harvard University announced this month that it would significantly expand financial aid to students from families earning as much as $180,000 a year, William G. Durden, president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., got a query from a student?s father, asking whether the college would follow Harvard?s lead.

?He even said, ?I know this costs a lot of money, but you should do it anyway,? ? Dr. Durden said. The president replied that Dickinson, a small liberal arts college where the full annual cost of tuition, fees, room and board nears $45,000, did not have the money to match Harvard?s largess.

Because of Harvard, Dr. Durden said ruefully in recalling the exchange, ?a lot of us are going to be under huge pressure to do these things that we just can?t do.?

By substantially discounting costs for all but the very wealthiest students, Harvard shook up the landscape of college pricing. Like Dr. Durden, officials of other colleges say its move will create intense pressure on them to give more aid to upper-middle-class students and will open the door to more parental price haggling.

Officials at colleges without anything like Harvard?s $35 billion endowment say a rush to give tuition discounting to the middle and upper middle class at institutions like theirs could end up shifting financial aid from low-income students to wealthier, make pricing seem even more arbitrary and create pressure to raise full tuition to pay for all the assistance.

Some academics who study higher education predict that Harvard?s decision may even reduce economic diversity at Harvard itself, even though the university already allows any admitted student from a family earning $60,000 or less to attend virtually free of charge.

?It will educate those parents into thinking, ?Eighteen thousand dollars a year is what we ought to be paying; why should we have to pay more than that?? ? said John Strassburger, president of Ursinus College, where full costs are currently $43,160.

To read the full article at The New York Times.