Senate seeks to combat college costs
January 25th, 2008 by KimThe US Senate on Thursday demanded information from the nation’s 136 wealthiest colleges and universities, led by Harvard and Yale, about how they have raised tuition, determined financial aid and spent their endowments over the last 10 years.
The Senate Finance Committee has recently been pressuring schools to spend more of their funds on financial aid, and has threatened to require them to spend a minimum of 5 percent of their endowments each year, according to the NYT.
Weighing in with the largest endowment is Harvard, whose endowment grew 20 percent in the last fiscal year to $34.6 billion. Yale’s endowment, the second largest, grew 25 percent to $22.5 billion, according to a report released this week.
Harvard and Yale have recently expanded their financial aid programs to make more money available to students with higher family incomes. Last month, Harvard announced that it would now offer financial aid to students whose parents have incomes of $120,000 to $180,000. Yale followed suit this week and will now make financial aid available to students with family incomes of $120,000 to $200,000.
University officials, though, seemed cautious about the idea of Congress mandating how schools spend their endowments.
Is the rising cost of tuition and the supervision of university endowments, especially private universities, something lawmakers should step in on?
Would forcing colleges and universities to spend more of their endowments help address rising college costs?
Tags: college, financial aid
January 25th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I think the lawmakers shouldn’t get involved. There are other more critical issues that need to be address (i.e. public universities).
January 25th, 2008 at 11:19 am
am i reading this wrong? […offer financial aid to students whose parents have incomes of $120,000 to $180,000] ????
Are you kidding me? I know there are many students whose parents’ combine income make under 60K/year and still dont qualify for financial aid. I was one of em..I had to buss @$$ in college and work to support myself….
This just seems a bit sketchy [offer more money for the rich kids while the poor kids buss @$$]…so sad
January 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Far be it from me to defend “high maka maka” people (especially since I wen grad from public school…chee-hooo!), but I don’t see anything wrong with Harvard and Yale offering financial assistance to kids with “rich” parents.
If you make $120,000 a year, you’re going to lose almost 50% of that in taxes, leaving you with $60,000. If you pay cash for your child’s tuition, room/board and books at Harvard or Yale you’ll be spending 50% of your take home pay on one child’s yearly college costs.
Harvard spending more money on fin-aid to a rich kid isn’t stealing any bread from someone who is attending KCC.
(What bothers me more than fin-aid to rich kids is the grade inflation that occurs at Ivy League and other high maka maka places like Stanford.)
January 27th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I was lucky enough to have parents who were sufficiently poor to qualify me for full financial assistance at an East Coast private university. Believe it or not, it was cheaper for me to go to college than it was for me to go to private school here in Hawaii, all thanks to my university’s large endowment. More students deserve such educational opportunities — both in high school and in college. My parents had no assets, no saving and made less money in a year than the price of my college tuition. Obviously, not everyone is in such a sad economic state, so I’m glad universities are expanding aid to all those who need it. You shouldn’t have to sell your house to send your child to one of our nation’s best institutions.