At What Price?

roadlesstraveled
Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:05:24 +0000

{{Colgate been successful in granting very generous aid to lower-income students by admitting as many wealthy students as possible who will pay the full ticket price. It did not need to make any kind of budget cuts}}}

Here is one instance Smith excels. Colgate offers only 30 % of its students aid. Smith offers aid to 60 % of its students. With the saving Smith could achieve if they cut aid to only 30% of its students they too could do many more things many of us have on our wish list and not make budget cuts either. But then 170+ low income students wouldn’t be getting a great education, if they were getting educated at all. I guess fewer dinning rooms is still a fair price to pay in my opinion. The Praxis program that help fund students who accept unpaid internships is also a nice perk. Smith will also pay for students to attend meeting and seminars. My daughter and her friends were in DC at a convention complexly paid for, plane tickets included, by Smith. Granted, you can only do that once a year but it’s still generous of Smith to fund students who normally couldn’t afford, or even those that can, attend cultural/ educational events around the country

Colgate is actually building its campus at the expense of the low income students. I’ve never seen that low of a number of students receiving aid until now. But their average indebtedness at graduation is $13,452–very low by any standard.
Even Dartmouth gives aid to over 50% of its students. But Colgate is a private institution and can do as it wishes. It also explains the jump in SAT averages. Higher income students have higher scores.
Now that Colgate has done away with the online app fee and do not recommend SAT subject tests anymore, their applications will take what I’m sure will be a huge jump. Mostly * Hail Mary* applications, but it will artificially bring the acceptance rate down and help with the rankings.