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Building on a long history of need-blind
admissions and need-based aid, Cornell University
announced a sweeping new financial aid initiative to
eliminate need-based loans for all undergraduate
students from families with incomes under $75,000,
making it possible for new students to graduate
debt-free.
Cornell's new financial aid initiative
will be implemented over the next two years. In the
first year, 2008-09, the university will eliminate
need-based loans going forward for undergraduate
students from families with incomes under $60,000 and
cap them annually at $3,000 for students from families
with incomes between $60,000 and $120,000. The following
year, 2009-10, the program will take full effect by
eliminating need-based loans for students from families
with incomes up to $75,000, and capping annual loans at
$3,000 for students from families with incomes between
$75,000 and $120,000.
In unveiling the initiative, Provost
Carolyn Martin said, "My colleagues and I are delighted
to make this announcement, capping a year-long effort to
identify the resources and mechanisms that would provide
meaningful relief for a significant number of students,
who can continue to excel at their academic work and
consider a range of careers without the worry of
excessive debt at graduation."
Reflecting on similar efforts, Provost
Martin added: "Our goal is to provide support that is
consistent with what matters to Cornell as an
institution. What matters to us is the social good of
providing access to education for deserving students,
regardless of their ability to pay, and ensuring that
their choices after graduation are not constrained by
debt. The entire campus benefits from our ability to
enroll the most diverse and talented student body. The
challenge we and our peers face is to ensure access
without undermining the funding model that has allowed
higher education in the U.S. to flourish, the
partnership that requires investments from state and
federal government, philanthropy, universities,
families, and students. The point is not to make higher
education a free good or to shift the responsibility for
funding it disproportionately to universities, few of
which can afford to eliminate or cap student loans and
all of which are being asked to do more and more for our
communities and the larger society."
Cornell expects to spend $116.8 million
of its own resources on undergraduate financial aid in
2007-08, 94 percent of which will be spent on grant aid.
More than 60 percent of Cornell's undergraduates receive
some form of financial aid. Cornell has a greater number
and a higher percentage than most of its peers of Pell
grant recipients—students from families that have annual
incomes below $45,000. For fall 2007, Cornell enrolled
1,799 Pell grant recipients, representing 13.3 percent
of its undergraduate student body.
Cornell will fund the incremental cost
of the initiative from an increase in payout from its
endowment, new gifts, and reallocations of existing
budget resources over the next two years. The annual
cost of the initiative is expected to increase the
university's total annual financial aid expenditure by
an additional $14 million when fully implemented.
About the future evolution of the initiative, Vice
President for Planning and Budget, Carolyn Ainslie said:
"While current federal data show that the U.S. median
family income is $58,407, it will rise over time. We
will review this program on an annual basis to make sure
our actions keep pace with changes in family incomes. We
will also evaluate the size of the family contribution
we require for students from our neediest families."
At the time of its founding, Cornell
University was considered revolutionary because its
founder, Ezra Cornell was committed to access for all
students, regardless of economic circumstance, race, and
gender, declaring, "I would found an institution where
any person can find instruction in any study." Together
with Cornell's first president Andrew Dickson White, he
opened the institution's doors "to applicants for
admission…at the lowest rates of expense consistent with
its welfare and efficiency, and without distinction as
to rank, class, previous occupation or locality." Within
the first ten years of operation, the university
admitted women and underrepresented minority students
and provided financial aid for many students, using a
combination of grant, loan and work-study opportunities.
Cornell awarded need-based grants as early as 1879, and
its first endowed scholarship fund was created in 1892.
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