How good is the financial aid at Duke?

objobs
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:02:51 +0000

SBR:

objobs:

Your whole argument regarding Brown centers on their commitment to socioeconomic diversity which is without a doubt better than Duke’s. But I would submit that endowment is a significant factor when schools implement FA. Brown (and Ivy League schools in general) tend to be anomalies in terms of FA. Looking at a list of schools ranked by endowment, there are many non-ivy schools who have greater endowments but worse FA programs. In this case, I would argue that Duke’s stance is actually more conventional Brown and that the trend is endowment size is generally a good predictor of FA (outside of the Ivies that is).



Among Duke’s non-Ivy peers, Rice and Vanderbilt have smaller endowments but as good if not better FA. Admittedly, Rice’s per capita endowment is higher than Duke’s but Duke’s per capita endowment is higher than Vanderbilt’s. So Brown is not that much of an “anomaly.”

And for the record, I am not the one who’s constantly trying to compare Duke to the (non-HYP) Ivies. It is YOU Duke students and alumni/ae who seek and aspire to the ever elusive Ivy-level status. Like I said, “you cannot have your cake and eat it too.”



SBR:

As for graduate students. I have to say that I don’t believe that they factor into FA all that much. A large part of many graduate students’ stipends actually come from their PIs many of whom pay for their graduate students from their own funding sources.



Tell that to the resident expert on graduate education.