Keep Financial Aid Hot

To much fanfare, Princeton University announced last month that it would not raise undergraduate tuition for the coming year. According to The New York Times, several factors—including alumni donations, the 20 percent return of endowment investments, and the decision by trustees to spend more of the endowment—enabled Princeton to implement this freeze. Certainly, Princeton is to be commended for using surplus financial resources to ameliorate the massive burden high tuition rates impose on students and their families, especially those from middle- and low-income households. But we believe that extra available dollars at universities are better spent on financial aid than across-the-board tuition freezes.

Princeton is following in the footsteps of Williams College, which froze tuition for the 2000-2001 school year. Extracting more funds from the endowment to reduce tuition increases is, to be sure, a good idea. Over the past few years, paying for college has become a greater burden for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, largely due to sharp tuition increases at selective private colleges. Indeed, the comprehensive costs of education are rising so rapidly that even in spite of the tuition freeze, room and board costs at Princeton will still increase that school’s annual composite price by 4.2 percent for an undergraduate with a full meal plan.

But general tuition freezes are not the best choice to help students who have the greatest need of financial relief. Tuition, after all, is fundamentally a market price paid by students who can afford it, while financial aid programs cover, as much as possible, students who cannot afford full tuition—and who still sometimes receive aid that is meager or insufficient, even at schools with the most generous financial aid programs. Allocating extra funds to a tuition freeze instead of financial aid will generally benefit students paying the full tuition price more than those who are in the greatest need of financial assistance.

Bolstering financial aid programs, on the other hand, distributes aid to those students who need it most. If Harvard were to come across surplus available funds in a given fiscal year for example, the money could be directed to the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) or any number of other funds provided by the Financial Aid Office. In this way, the University could expand its mission of educational accessibility by dedicating available funds to those who would most benefit from them.

As tuition costs rise in the United States, it is up to the top private colleges to lead the way in making education more affordable to as many students as possible. Princeton’s initiative is worthy in its philosophy, but flawed in its execution. All universities—including Harvard—must strive to reduce the burden of undergraduate tuition costs, but they most focus their efforts on students who need help most.