May/June 2008
Around the Quads
Columbia Announces Financial Aid Initiatives
By Alex Sachare ’71
Dean Austin Quigley (right) thanks John W. Kluge ’37, whose pledge of $400 million toward financial aid will help pay for the recently announced initiatives. PHOTO: EILEEN BARROSOColumbia has announced sweeping changes to its undergraduate financial aid program in keeping with its long-standing commitment to diversity of every kind. Key elements of the financial aid initiatives announced on March 11 include:
- Eliminating loans for all students receiving aid, whatever their family income, and replacing them with grants. This enhancement could add as much as $20,000 in Columbia-funded grants to each four-year aid package.
- Assisting lower-income families by no longer expecting parents with calculated incomes below $60,000 to contribute any income or assets to tuition, room, board and mandatory fees.
- Reducing significantly parent contributions for families with calculated incomes between $60,000–$100,000 and typical assets. For example, a family with $75,000 in income and typical assets will see its contribution decrease by approximately half.
- Supporting students pursuing study abroad, research, internship and community service opportunities by reducing academic year and summer work responsibilities.
The initiatives go into effect with the 2008–09 academic year and cover all students in the College and SEAS — current students as well as incoming members of the Class of 2012.
“It has long been recognized at Columbia that the institution’s national standing is firmly based upon its twin commitments to inclusiveness and excellence,” Dean Austin Quigley wrote in a message to the College community announcing the initiative. “Financial aid is so important because the College’s excellence derives in significant part from its inclusiveness, from the range of voices that inform academic inquiry and social exchange. In this sense, all students benefit from our financial aid programs, whether or not they receive financial support.
“The new financial aid initiatives underscore our continued commitment to inclusiveness, making a Columbia education even more accessible for students from every background.”
President Lee C. Bollinger said, “Columbia has a record of attracting among the most socioeconomically diverse undergraduate student populations among our peer institutions through our commitment to need-blind admissions. We are both proud of that diversity and determined to maintain it by expanding aid to the extent our resources allow so that our students will continue to benefit from the full range of experiences that are part of a Columbia education and, we hope, part of the lives they choose to lead because of those experiences.”
The initiatives build on a September 2006 announcement that grants would replace loans for all families earning less than $50,000 per year in the current 2007–08 academic year.
The financial aid initiatives are made possible by the current and anticipated success of the Columbia Campaign for Undergraduate Education, which is part of the $4 billion Columbia Campaign. The College is seeking to raise $400 million in financial aid endowment, of which $260 million has been committed. Last year, Columbia’s most generous donor, John W. Kluge ’37, pledged $400 million for financial aid, half of which is directed to the College. The remainder of the needed funding will come from a combination of operating revenue, new fundraising and an increase in the endowment spending rate.
Columbia will continue to expand its well-established efforts to reach outstanding students from lower-income families, to be sure that the accessibility of college opportunities are fully understood by students and parents, especially those who are first-generation college-bound. The University pioneered such efforts four decades ago with its Double Discovery program, which became one of the models for Upward Bound in providing after-school and summer enrichment programs on Columbia’s campus for public high school students from Harlem and other New York City neighborhoods.
For many years, this commitment to inclusiveness and excellence has been demonstrated by Columbia’s allocation of significant resources to early college awareness outreach programs across the nation, building contacts in communities that have been underrepresented historically. Fifteen percent of the College Class of 2011 are first-generation college students.
In conjunction with the University’s new financial aid initiatives, Columbia will continue to expand partnerships with almost 500 nonprofit organizations that help students and families from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, including increased outreach and sponsorship of on-campus and regional college access workshops for counselors and students.