Last April, we published a staff editorial prescribing that all changes in the University’s operating budget should prioritize internal well-being over external image. Given this prescription, we believe it is important to commend the University’s commitment to maintaining student financial aid packages, manifested most recently in the “Opening Doors to the Future” initiative.

The aim of the initiative, which officially begins Nov. 7, is to encourage private individuals and philanthropic institutions to contribute funds for scholarships and grants for financially-burdened students. Its target is $150 million, which will go toward a wide range of aid packages.

This is the first initiative directed explicitly at financial aid since the chancellor’s announcement of the change in the endowment last April. Its intention is to take steps toward combating changes in family situations that would otherwise encumber students from attending or continuing at Wash. U. We support the University’s efforts to ensure that such changes will not have detrimental consequences for the student body and feel that this initiative is particularly well timed.

In an interview this August, the chancellor attested to the success of the University’s financial aid programs in helping the University move forward, attract top students and become a high-quality institution, saying, “Our financial aid program has been very effective in the march forward of the University in terms of the quality of the experience that we have here for everyone—not just people who can afford to pay, but for those who need financial aid to attend.”

We believe strongly that enabling those who need financial aid to attend this University is a necessity for our individual and institutional well-being. As demonstrated by student leaders on the Washington University for Undergraduate Socio-Economic Diversity (WU/FUSED) panels, our community benefits greatly from enhanced socioeconomic diversity. Individually, we benefit from interactions with those whose experiences differ radically from our own. As a University—and as a nation—we benefit when natural talent, not ability to pay, is the determinant behind who receives a top-quality education.

We take pride in knowing that our University is a place where students educated at expensive preparatory schools can take the same classes and coexist socially with those who come from suffering public schools. Currently, this is made possible by the provision of need-based aid and merit-based programs such as the Ervin and Rodriguez scholarships. We believe that the resulting interactions between different kinds of students are invaluable.

It is in this sense that “Opening Doors to the Future” is key. Unless the population of our University reflects the population of the nation at large, we have little hope for understanding the social and political struggles that will come to shape the 21st century. Socioeconomic diversity is tantamount to our education as students, people and citizens. We commend the University for recognizing the importance of financial aid in realizing this goal.

The success of “Opening Doors to the Future” will rely on the support—both practical and financial—of members of our community. We encourage the community to take account of the benefits associated with meeting student financial aid needs now and to support the maintenance of our University and its students.

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Tags: financial aid, staff editorial

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 2:50 am and is filed under Forum, Staff Editorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.