By Whitney Graham
With Haverford recently going loan-free and Congress taking an interest in college aid, financial aid is an important topic at many colleges, including Bryn Mawr. “I think one of the things that is difficult about this is that there are different ways to define financial aid,” said Jenny Rickard, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Bryn Mawr. Different schools have varying methods for calculating and reporting aid, which makes comparison difficult.
One of the major differences in admission policies which is a more straight forward way of comparing schools, is the question of need-blind and need-sensitive admission.
Bryn Mawr, which provided over sixty percent of students with aid last year, changed to a need-sensitive financial aid policy in 1995. Prior to that time, Bryn Mawr, and many other colleges, employed a financial aid plan referred to as “admit and deny,” where the admissions process was need-blind but some admitted students were not always able to receive funding, and therefore unable to attend Bryn Mawr.
“So not everybody would get aid. People would get admitted and then not be funded, and what happened in the college admissions community was a big debate about that, because students would get these offers and then not be able to take them,” said Rickard, who went on to explain that this also led to students dropping out due to the financial burden of college. “In the whole admissions world the debate ensued and a number of schools, and Bryn Mawr one of them, decided to become what is called need-sensitive,” said Rickard.
The current need-sensitive practice of the Bryn Mawr admissions office entails being aware that not all students can be given funding or aid. The admissions process can be essentially need-blind for up to about 95 percent of decisions, but the last few percent of students who would require but not receive aid are placed on the waitlist. The admissions office runs a model of the admitted class to gauge how financial aid and consequently offers for admission will work.
Rickard explained that need-sensitive policies are often misunderstood. “Need-sensitive schools actually award more financial aid than need-blind schools,” said Rickard. “The reason that we are need-sensitive is because our applicant pool is that much more socioeconomically diverse, than if we were to be need-blind if we don’t have unlimited resources. So as a result we spend four or five million dollars more on financial aid than our need-blind peers.”
There are no major changes predicted for Bryn Mawr’s financial aid policy in the near future, apart from Rickard’s hope to make the process more transparent and less complicated. “We certainly are going to be evaluating our financial aid policies and practices, in light of all of the turmoil out there. And I think what our dilemma is, is that we already spend more than most of our peers who have announced these initiatives, and we also aid more students— So the question then becomes, how do you afford to modify your financial aid practices without compromising your ability to aid the most students,” said Rickard.
Despite the idea that need-blind can sound more attractive than need-sensitive, Rickard maintains that both systems work well. “We tend to flog ourselves for [not being need-blind]—and goodness knows I would love to be need-blind. That would make my day, but at the same time, I appreciate the fact that we have such a socioeconomically diverse applicant pool that we are able to provide access to more students,” said Rickard. “The way that Bryn Mawr has looked at it is not just affordability, but access and affordability. So, providing access to a Bryn Mawr education to as many students as possibly, while making it affordable to as many students as possible.”
This article is © 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.
Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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