<p>Yes. Williams adjusts financial aid downward for students going to a less expensive study abroad program. However, the programs designed to sell to Williams students are largely priced comparably to a semester at a school like Williams, so the adjustments would be negligible.</p>
<p>The Swarthmore approach that many schools use (charge home school tuition and the college pays study abroad fees) was supposed to be a revenue generator, but it really hasn’t worked out that way in practice, in part because there is an incentive to pick top study abroad programs. My daughter’s program actually cost Swarthmore more than tuition, room, and board for a semester. They showed the net number in one of the budget presentations over the last year; it’s minimal impact on the bottom line, but it shows up as a signficant increase in revenues received compared to schools that don’t include study abroad students in financial reporting.</p>
<p>^^some of the study abroad differential also relates to the strength of the dollar. When the dollar is strong, a college can arbitrage it study abroad to make a small profit. OTOH, when the dollar is weak --as it has been recently – it doesn’t buy much room and board overseas.</p>
<p>So, wait. You’re saying, Williams could “afford” to cut its financial policy and that’s why beginning with the Class of 2015, it will be at approximately the same level as Wesleyan’s? [scratches head] I guess, we’ll have to see how this plays out.</p>
<p>I’m not sayin’ “anything” about Williams’ strategy. I’m surprised at the moves they are making. I clearly don’t have a good handle on their financial situation or strategies. I’ve got a couple of different theories, but the lack of any kind of coherent, comprehensive, or even consistent management presentation of their budget situation makes it impossible to understand.</p>
<p>If you want my best guess, I think they are in OK financial shape made much more difficult by their refusal to make certain obvious cuts (athletics, international aid) and the decision to budget $5 million a year debt service for a new $100 million library, even if they have to shed the biology department to pay for it. That’s just my wild guess. I don’t know.</p>
<p>I actually applaud the decision to trim financial aid budgets, which had grown like out-of-control wildfire over the last five years. That had to happen, IMO. What surprised me is why they shaved the domestic aid packages by an average of $2000 per aid student and didn’t touch the intl aid, which is where the out-of-control growth has been occurring. They are only getting, on average, $2,646 in net revenue from each of their international students compared to an average of $28,000 from each of their students overall. That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>I guess the athletic director shared his stash of compromising photos with the international admissions dean.</p>
<p>Interestdad, or maybe they know something you don’t know about their future pool of major donors. Like they’re in conversations with a Third Generation Williams family considering a billion dollar gift over the next 20 years with the proviso that they maintain XYZ sports teams. Or that they are about to close a significant gift with a Russian Oligarch whose first taste of capitalism was as a Freshman at Williams. </p>
<p>You are entitled to any theories you like. But it puzzles me that your default position is always to assume that there’s something underhanded or snarky about the decision-making. </p>
<p>You are often critical of universities who need liquidity, and you inevitably associate it with greedy or incompetent investment managers. Do you get critical when Pepsico or Boeing or Procter and Gamble have short term liquidity needs despite having billions of dollars of investment capital at their disposal? Considering every (legal) financing tool at your disposal is the first rule of responsible financial management.</p>
<p>^^^
Actually, in this case, I assumed that the Williams administration had a good handle on the finances. The financials have all looked pretty solid and I’ve been including them among the schools that were well-positioned to get through the recession with minimum disruption (relatively speaking). I had predicted that they would not continue the salary freeze and would not end no-loan financial aid.</p>
<p>It’s not my fault that they have made little or no effort to “sell” the rationale behind a comprehensive set of budget adjustments to the alumni, students, or faculty. They could certainly present the same kinds of documented plans that other schools are presenting and put the same kind of videotaped town hall presentation on the web.</p>
<p>I always kind of got the feeling that Williams dropped loans because Amherst did it first. Totally subjective… yeah, I know. Amherst dropped them prior to even ED applications in 2008. Williams did later, in time to attract RD apps. It never felt like if came from the same place of social committment that it did at Amherst. Again, just my subjective experience of having a kid apply during that crazy year when no-loans policies starting springing up like mushrooms in a certain range of colleges. Ah, the golden bubble before the economic storm.</p>