Brown Cuts Back Financial Aid Packages

Brown University will significantly cut next year's undergraduate financial aid packages, university officials said this week.

The changes in Brown's financial aid policies will include:

I a decrease in the number and amount of direct grants;

I an increase in the self-help requirements financial aid students must meet:

I a significant cut-back on aid to foreign students: and

I a change in admissions policy which would admit only those foreign students able to pay tuition.

Economic pressures caused by inflation and decreasing government support have made the cuts necessary. Alan P. Maynard, Brown's director of financial aid, said this week.

"In schools not as well-endowed as Harvard--and I understand these issues are even being discussed there--financial aid over the next few years will have to change or it will eventually cut into academic quality." Maynard added.

Richard J. Ramsden, vice-president in charge of administration and finance at Brown, said that "although student need is going through the roof," the aid cutbacks would not force students out of Brown. "It won't be pleasant for the students," he added.

Students at Brown are attempting to change the new financial aid policies. In an effort to organize and consolidate student protest, students recently opened a local chapter of the Washington-based Coalition of Independent College and University Students (COPUS) to protest financial aid cuts at both the national and campus levels.

"We think there are other areas in the budget that can and should be cut before financial aid." Julle B. Gutman, director of COPUS, said this week, adding that cutting financial aid "will make Brown more and more of an elitist Institution by making it harder for poor students and minorities to attend Brown."

Members of Brown's Third World Coalition said that the cuts would disproportionately affect minority students. "Minority and poor students will be most hurt by these cuts because of their greater dependence on financial aid." Jennifer Freeman, a spokesman for the Third World Coalition, said this week.

James F. Rogers, director of Admissions at Brown, said yesterday that Brown has never considered the financial status of its applicants during the admissions process, but added. "We are learning that resources are finite."