Scott BresslerThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an editorial saying that Washington University’s recent change in financial aid policy would no longer force families with incomes less than $60,000 to take out loans. While this is good news, and it certainly does not fall on deaf ears, the article pointed out something interesting.
Our school is “need-blind”-that is, it doesn’t take family income into account when making admissions decisions-until it runs out of scholarship money. When there is no financial aid left to pass around, students who do not need aid are admitted over those who do; to quote the Post-Dispatch, “It fills the first part of its class without regard to ability to pay. But once its scholarship pot runs out, it fills the bottom of its class with students who can pay more of their own way.”
What I found shocking in reading the article was the words it used about our university. Washington University was referred to not as a world-class academic institution, but as an “elite, wealthy school.” The article was quick to point out that Wash. U.’s new financial aid policy will “affect only about 10% of its students.” It made it obvious that we are lacking something-at least in local public perception. And that something, it would seem, is diversity.
Certainly, we have plenty of diversity in the way we’ve come to understand it: we have racial diversity, diversity on paper. Which is good, and I think we benefit from it. But what we don’t have-not really, at least-is socioeconomic diversity. We do not have the diversity of background and experience that should exist at this kind of an institution. After all, not all smart kids are rich.
And while I hope that the new tuition policy will do something about this lack of diversity, I’m not sure it will. Regardless of whether the University gives loans to lower-income students, the truth remains that Washington University admissions are not need-blind. Furthermore, the idea that the University stops giving money when it runs out favors students with financial need who apply early decision, which is a rare occurrence-the binding early admission policy makes low-income students leery of applying to a school that they cannot afford, to which they will be required to go, regardless of their aid package.
Low-income students have enough going against them: worse public schools and a financial inability to attend private schools, lesser-educated and lesser-informed parents, and fewer opportunities to make themselves into polished Wash. U. applicants.
The last thing they need is for the University itself to turn them down on the basis of their inability to pay. And while I commend Wash. U. for doing away with loans for low-income students, our school cannot truly be diverse until its administration decides that need-blind admissions are worth the cost.
Kate is a freshman in Arts & Sciences and a staff columnist. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].