A column from the Wall Street Journal recently posted an article about financial aid in college, sharing the advice that some families should resort to not applying for financial aid (taking the burden of extra loans out on themselves) as a way to boost their child’s chances of admission. This was kind of a shock to me… maybe from the Yale environment, I’ve come to feel entitled to generous need-based financial aid, that I forget what the struggle of financial aid means at a lot of other Universities.
For starters, admission into Yale is completely need-blind. For reals. That means whether or not you’re asking for financial aid has no bearing on your admissions decision. Contrary to what the article seems to suggests happens at other schools, at Yale its the same for International Students, it’s the same for students who get deferred from early action, its the same for students hoping to get off the waitlist. Financial aid does not determine your admissions decision.
Once a student is admitted, financial aid is 100% need based. So that means the family submits a number of tax documents to the Office of Financial Services who then predicts what the family can be expected to contribute to the cost of a Yale education without it being an undue burden. The difference between the total cost and what the family can be expected to reasonably pay is the “demonstrated financial need”, which Yale matches with gift aid. These are not loans to be repayed, its scholarship.
This year, the financial aid budget is about $109 million, and I can tell you its only getting larger next year. The administration has made it explicitly clear that they will not allow the economic recession to impact the commitment to making Yale affordable to everyone. About 60% of students receive some amount of financial aid, and the average financial aid award is $35,400–that’s nothing to sneeze at. In my own case, my family is paying less for the cost of a Yale education than they would have if I went to University of Washington, which for me would be the public, in-state price.
This is one of the ways Yale has privileged me–even though I recognize that sending a kid to college is tough for families, the amount of financial aid here has really insulated me from experiencing that myself. If you still have concerns about financial aid, definitely check out some of the links on the financial aid tab of this site.