smartalic34

MAsteve wrote Actually, if you do the math and calculate endowment per student, Wesleyan is poorer than every Ivy League school (by at least 50%) and every NESCAC school except Bates, Trinity, and Conn College, none of which are need-blind. Also poorer than Vassar, Swarthmore, Oberlin, Grinnell, and Haverford. Wesleyan may be one of the wealthier schools in the country, but if you look at the list of need-blind schools, Wesleyan is poorer than practically every single one. As I said, the endowment money is simply not there. Simple as that.

Edit: As anothermom2 said, endowment payouts should not exceed more than 5% per year, which is what allows them to remain and grow in perpetuity. Wesleyan, however, was spending as high as 7%, which is a no-no. That's been rectified, but there was overspending in the past that has led to this situation.

chaosakita

I think it is very unfortunate that Wesleyan is no longer need blind. However, I think the students who would've gotten in still will do very well at any other school, including public ones. I guess the students who need it the very most might be hurt. I think the problem might have to do with Wesleyan's finances; they probably haven't been increasing their endowment as much as they need.

johnwesley

I do not agree with the proposition that a school has to nearly go broke in order to show its moral and ethical _bona fides_.

kelsmom

Children from poorer families are already disadvantaged as compared to ones from wealthier ones. For Wesleyan to further disadvantage those from poorer families is shameful.
*****
Wesleyan is not further disadvantaging anyone ... they are still accepting and giving aid to many. They are not cutting out aid, and they are not saying they are completely doing away with need blind admission ... just at the tail end of the admissions process.

maggiedog

I firmly believe that Wesleyan can do whatever it wants. I think most colleges are overpriced AND many are also extremely generous. No college owes anyone anything. It is a privilege to get financial aid.

boysx3

I am glad that Wesleyan is being transparent.

Whatever aid budget is set by the school, it does no one any good for a school to accept applicants knowing that there is absolutely no way for them to attend, or for them to be able to attend only if their family is able to obtain huge loans.

Especially when all of the students in the pool of applicants are well qualified, it makes sense to spread around the dollars that are available to benefit the greatest number of students. A school like Wesleyan will certainly still choose to fully fund some attractive full need students, and also choose to partially fund more attractive applicants with some need.

Xwords59

In addition to doing what they did (which I applaud), the best thing they can do is cut costs (of which I am sure there are lots of $$ to cut without sacrificing school academics). That will make Wes cheaper for everyone, and their yearly grants and scholarships can be spread among more students. There is NO real good reason for a school to cost $60K per year.

smartalic34

There was a lot to cut when the recession took place. $30 million of the budget was cut, but there isn't much left to cut (except maybe some administrators) without affecting academics at this point.

Not including auxiliary services, it's a $182 million budget. Instruction/academics (includes library budget, professor salaries, etc.) makes up $75 million, financial aid is another $54 million. $17 million to public safety and maintaining the physical plant (it should be noted Wes has $42 million of deferred maintenance - maintenance that should have been performed and hasn't). $7 million on research. The last $30 million is student services, external relations, and institutional support.

You can't cut professor salaries (Wes is below the mean of its peer group) nor financial aid. Wes is already behind on campus maintenance, and you can't cut research. The last $30 million is a little unclear for its purpose, but I'd imagine it includes fundraising support, publicity, and the career center services, as well as dining and residential life. Not things you want to be cutting. Athletics makes up $3 million, but Wes has to spend what other NESCAC schools do to stay competitive, and that's the going rate.

Small residential liberal arts education is expensive. If you want a cheap education, go to a large state school. It's a luxury education, and it doesn't come cheap. It's great that these schools offer such great financial aid, but these schools aren't in the business of doing education cheaply. Small LACs by nature are inefficient.

I'm not saying there isn't anything to cut, but rather, the maximum you can do at this point is trim a bit.

northwesty

Every school, even Harvard, has a budget that it has to meet. Even though Harvard is need blind and has extremely generous need-aid and has more money than any other school, they do a lot of things to make sure they stay within their budget.

For example, they admit lots of kids from private schools (35% of Harvard's class vs. 8% nationally). They also admit lots of Harvard legacies (30% admission rate vs. 8% overall). And then they take kids ED.

While all those admits are qualified, those over-represented demographics reduce the number of admits that will need aid.

johnwesley

Wow, SM34 that was quite a summary. Btw, where did you get the numbers on athletics? I thought that was a closely guarded secret.

songman

Part of the diligence one does in researching possible colleges to attend should include determining the size of a college's endowment, funds available etc. In this low interest rate environment it is not difficult to drill down and determine the actual amount of funds available for need based applicants. I find many parents (and their kids) are shocked when their student is accepted to a top rated LAC or university only to be offered a skimpy amount relative to the tuition. This is a numbers game sadly. With college wages, benefits, Operational expenses and COLA truly running at 6% + an endowment can no longer stick 50% of the funds in safe US Treasuries and peel off the income for merit aid or direct school grants.

johnwesley

Middlebury - $48,000,000

WESLEYAN - $42,000,000

Williams - $40,273,000

Amherst - $37,455,000

Swarthmore - $25,995,000*

Pomona - $25,822,000

Bowdoin - $23,920,000

NOTE: For the most part, the figures are for the fiscal year ending in 2010 because that was the last financial report filed online by Amherst. For Swarthmore, f/y 2011 was the only available financial report.

smartalic34

JW:

Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool Website

You have to drill down, but it's there. You also have to let the pages fully load. I correct myself - Wes spent $4.2 million for most recent data, Amherst and Williams each $4.7 million, Bowdoin $4.8 million, Middlebury was at $4.9 million and Trinity a whopping $5.6 million. These numbers come out to only 2-4% of overall budgets (Wes on the low and and Trinity on the high end), so not really eyebrow-raising.

songman

Johnwesley or SmartAlic- is that $48 Million directly from Middlebury's bank account so to speak or do the figures include Pell Grants and other government subsidies in the figures?

johnwesley

^^Oooh, good question. All the figures are reported in the income portion of each school's financial report, but as a negative amount, as tuiton that is not recovered (presumably, due to discounting.) Government subsidies, I believe, would be reported as a positive and included in the general mix of tuition income, but I'm not an accountant and I could surely be wrong.