Stanford’s Bold Tuition Move
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Education, Money(02-19) 23:49 PST Palo Alto — In a radical change to its financial aid program, Stanford University will announce today that it will no longer charge tuition to students whose families earn less than $100,000 a year.In addition, the university will waive room and board fees for students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.
University President John Hennessy will make the announcement today on campus, university Provost John Etchemendy confirmed late Tuesday.
No doubt they’ve done the math on this, and it’s mainly possible due to the deep pockets provided by their tax exempt endowments, but still…well done Stanford!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 and is filed under Education, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Wow. Stanford will rapidly acquire the highest admissions standards in the country. I’m sure they’re already close to the top, in that regard … but they’re about to take the crown. You’re gonna have to be very smart, and very credentialed, to get in.
It reminds me a little of what Rice University did over the years. Excellent school. And they kept their tuition way down, compared to other schools. A friend of mine from high school went there, and he said something like two-thirds of the student body had been Valedictorians or Salutatorians of their high school class.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I hope Stanford will apply some pseudo affirmative action plan by ensuring that a certain percentage of their freshman classes come from lower income families. The big problem that the top universities are having is that all of their students are coming from wealthy, elite families. I hope this plan can be a turning point.
Way to go Stanford.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
This is really not news. Several Ivy League universities announced a similar policy a couple of months ago. The Boston Globe did a story on it, in which they said the schools are really just making a tactical maneuver, because there’s a movement afoot in Congress to mandate that they spend a certain amount of their endowments on tuition relief. So the kudos to Stanford are probably not quite as deserved as you make them out to be.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Chris, they’re giving away free tuition. That’s a big deal. And just because a few other institutions have done something similar (I don’t know because you haven’t provided a link) doesn’t mean it’s not impressive.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I should have looked this up before I posted. Here’s an opinion piece from the Globe that lays out the story pretty well.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/12/31/the_real_story_on_harvards_generosity/
February 20th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I should have looked this up before I posted. Here’s an opinion piece from the Globe that lays out the story pretty well.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/12/31/the_real_story_on_harvards_generosity/
As you can see, they’re primarily engaging in damage control. I’m not sure what’s so impressive about that.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I’ve tried leaving a follow-up comment twice now, so if all of my comments appear at once, forgive me. My point wasn’t that someone else did it first. It’s that the schools are simply engaging in damage control. As you’ll see from this Globe opinion piece, they’re trying to forestall Congressional action by taking steps that cost them a little bit of money, instead of the substantially greater sums that are being recommended by Congress. It’s good news for students. I just don’t think Stanford deserves an attaboy for it. It’s a completely self serving move.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/12/31/the_real_story_on_harvards_generosity/