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<p>I dunno. A little back of the napkin math shows that approximately 88% of Swarthmore’s African American students receive need-based financial aid.</p>
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<p>Plenty of schools already have that objective. It wouldn’t be my choice for a college, but I don’t have any problem with private colleges that practice extreme affirmative action for rich folk.</p>
<p>According to the College Board, a recent Swarthmore freshman class consisted of 370 students, 1% Native American, 17% Asian, 12% Black, 11% Hispanic, and 45% White.</p>
<p>250 applied for aid, and 181 were judged to have need. All 181 had their full need met.</p>
<p>67.57% of the freshman class applied for aid, and 72.4% of those who applied received aid. 48.92% of the freshman class as a whole received aid. That’s about 181 students.</p>
<p>The College Board does not break up aid by racial classification. I have a hunch that the data might be available on the CDS, but thanks to my 56K connection, I would appreciate it if you either confirmed my hunch or provided data in a post.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I’ll trust your number that 14% of the students receiving aid were Black. I thus acknowledge that I’m mixing data from two sources (you and the CB).</p>
<p>14% of 181 is 25 students. 12% of 370 is 44 students. 25 divided by 44 is 56.81%, which is a majority but a far cry from 88%. Even if I use your 9% black freshman class number and hold the 370 figure constant, the result would be 33 black incoming students. 25 divided by 33 is 75.75% percent, higher than 56.81% but still lower than 88%.</p>
<p>One can be wealthy and still receive need-based financial aid. Agreed?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the numbers show that a majority of black students get their full need met.</p>
<p>I am interested in your calculations.</p>
<p>Also, thanks for your fairness regarding wealthy student bodies.</p>
<p>“Why would it be a positive that whites are under-represented in financial aid?”</p>
<p>There was also the assumption by interesteddad that financial aid at need only schools is distributed purely on the basis of need. I thnk that is not necessarily a safe assumption since all elite schools are in an intensely competitive position vis a vis the very small number of academically high achieving URMs.</p>
<p>There is a lot of fudge room when figuring need. Does a high income low net worth family get more than a high income high asset family? Probably and it just so happens that even high income Blacks are notoriously poor accumulators of wealth.</p>
<p>fabrizio:</p>
<p>I was just doing back of the napkin calculations in my head, but:</p>
<p>This document shows that 51% of Swarthmore’s students received financial aid in 2006-07 and that 14% of those aid students were African American.</p>
<p><a href=“Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment :: Swarthmore College”>Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment :: Swarthmore College;
<p>This document shows that Swarthmore had total enrollment of 1484 in the fall of 2006, including 129 African American students.</p>
<p><a href=“Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment :: Swarthmore College”>Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment :: Swarthmore College;
<p>51% of 1484 is 757 financial aid students. 14% of 757 is 106 African American financial aid students.</p>
<p>106 of 129 is 82% of African American students receiving need-based financial aid. My napkin calcs were off by 5%.</p>
<p>Indeed, receiving financial aid is not indicative of being below the poverty line. However, everything is relative. It is indicative (roughly) of being among the lower half of Swarthmore’s student body economically.</p>
<p>Of course, none of these arbitrary thresholds are simple. I would guess that many of Swarthmore’s low income families are the result of single-parent households more than the stereotypical “opportunity-free” childhood of abject poverty.</p>
<p>To each his own. In my opinion, Swarthmore’s extremely high ethnic diversity is one of its most defining and desireable qualities. The diversity has a palpable impact on the campus culture, as it does at other highly diverse elite colleges. But, there are other elite colleges that cater to a white consumer base and, implicitly, sell their “whiteness” as a feature/benefit. And, then there are other schools that would like to have Swarthmore’s diversity but don’t have the necessary endowment to get there: diversity is expensive because minority students more likely to require financial aid than white students.</p>
<p>interesteddad,</p>
<p>Thank you for showing me your calculations. I see that you used data for the entire undergraduate student body as opposed to the freshman class.</p>
<p>The data you link is informative.</p>
<p>I found it very, very, very interesting that 56% of the aided students in 2006 had family incomes greater than $80,001. Where I live, $80,001 is at least upper middle class. I also found it interesting that a mere 11% of aided students in 2006 had family incomes between $40,001 and $60,000, the range I define as middle class.</p>
<p>I also found it interesting that a mere 11% of aided students in 2006 had family incomes between $40,001 and $60,000, the range I define as middle class.</p>
<p>" Middle class" families in my area- who make between $40,000 and $60,000, find it pretty difficult if not impossible to raise a family- can’t pay rent and can’t buy a home.
We are not talking large new homes either.
My home is 994 sq ft- built in 1901- assessed value is in the $400,000s</p>
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<p>Not surprising when the median net worth of African American households is $5598 and for white households it’s $88,651.
(2002 figures) </p>
<p>Financial aid officers know this data when making determinations in the number of minority acceptances. Primarily those institutions that are well endowed AND have a mission of enrolling minority students can achieve significant AA/minority numbers. It is why in part some talented minority students are eschewing public Ivies for the privates. Many talented minorities are choosing the Stanfords, Ivies, and selective LAC’s over the Berkeleys, Michigans, UCLA’s etc.</p>
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<p>I’d suggest looking up articles on admission leveraging.</p>
<p>One in particular is “The Best Class Money Can Buy”</p>
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<p>Why surprising? Tuition, room, and board was something like $43,000 last year.</p>
<p>“I found it very, very, very interesting that 56% of the aided students in 2006 had family incomes greater than $80,001. Where I live, $80,001 is at least upper middle class. I also found it interesting that a mere 11% of aided students in 2006 had family incomes between $40,001 and $60,000, the range I define as middle class.”</p>
<p>There are two kinds of diversity lacking at Swarthmore and most other elite schools. One is intellectual diversity and the other is economic divirsity. You have a beautiful rainbow of liberal thought, and the absence of the true middle/working class at these schools is striking. If anything Swarthmores 11% is a little higher than most.</p>
<p>I dunno. The father of one of my daughter’s friends drove a city bus…after retiring from the military.</p>
<p>Another’s father is a well-known Republican Congressman from Northern Virginia.</p>
<p>Again, nice soundbyte stereotypes that may or may not be reflective of reality. Sixteen percent of Swarthmore students are Asian Americans, who are not…as a group…known for being uniformly liberal.</p>
<p>The thing is, a two wage earning “working class” family these days is going to have a pretty nice income on paper…probably in that $80,000+ range.</p>
<p>“the absence of the true middle/working class at these schools is striking.”</p>
<p>What should Swarthmore be doing to attract more of these students that it is not already doing?</p>
<p>Diversity at Swarthmore? </p>
<p>My D’s 3 running buddies are the children of parents from Pakistan, and China, and an African-American from Texas. Her roommate’s parents are from Iran; my D is the granddaughter of an industrial worker and the daughter of a municipal worker. </p>
<p>Money is not an issue with the girls, all campus actives are free and it is considered very poor taste to talk about how much money your parents have or don’t have. It is also considered poor taste to talk about grades, other than to point out the apparent lack of grade inflation and complain about how much work has to been done in order to maintain respectability.</p>
<p>tommybill – international diversity is not the same as economic diversity. And it’s easy not to talk about money when you have it.</p>
<p>katliarmom…</p>
<p>Thanks for straightening me out….</p>
<p>You’re right tommybill, that did come accross as snotty, didn’t it? Sorry. I really didn’t mean it… My comment came out so sarcastic because to this day we remember one young, well-to-do Turkish exchange student who lived with us, and who was stunned to hear that many students in China are poor. She was really amazed & baffled to hear that. “All the Chinese kids I met in my Swiss boarding school were rich!” she said. This girl really had never had anything to do with anyone who wasn’t well off. And she had never met anyone who simply could not afford things. It was truly a foreign concept to this young woman who grew up in (and now lives in ) a third world country. After that experience, I’ve always looked at the whole ‘diversity’ issue in a different way. Funny thing was, she was studying economics…</p>
<p>katliamor….no problem at all…</p>
<p>I looked up Pell Grants at Swarthmore 15.3% of the kids get them…</p>
<p>I know what you are saying my D went to a school where 85% of the student body got free or reduced lunches, she was a rich kid there…… for high school she attended a school that had the 3rd highest average income (2 highest were“old grade” private schools) in the state…she was a poor kid there….she thinks she is better off for going to the two schools…she says 'I understand things others, both rich and poor, do not"</p>