When Dartmouth pledged to revamp student life, hoping to attract a more diverse and "high ability" applicant pool, it seemed that significant changes were in the works and would soon be visible.
But this has not been the case. Despite committee after committee and report after report, Dartmouth student life is not drastically different. Two TVs, free trips to hockey games, a new dance club and thousands of dollars. Still, the alterations in Dartmouth's social and residential life appear minimal.
Moreover, the number of applicants to Dartmouth appears to be plunging. The volume had been rising in previous years, but the College saw a slight dip last year, and this year, a significant five percent drop.
Meanwhile, at least five of the seven other Ivy League schools saw jumps in applications. The only Ivy that does not offer need blind admissions, Brown, was the other school in the League to see a drop this year -- just 1.4 percent, and that's following last year's huge 14 percent increase. However, other schools saw huge increases in applicant numbers -- most remarkably, 14 percent at Yale and six percent at Cornell.
Not one of those schools issued a Student Life Initiative.
Clearly, Dartmouth is in danger of falling behind the pack. With fewer applicants, the quality of students matriculating will no doubt decline. Thousands of dollars have been spent to make seemingly superficial changes to student life. How can this decline be reversed?
No one has the complete answer to that question, but there is one step that the Trustees need to take in order to make Dartmouth a more attractive undergraduate institution.
And this has nothing to do with student life.
It is time to follow Princeton's lead in doing away with student loans and replacing them with grants for financial aid students. Dartmouth cannot allow those "high-ability" students who want to matriculate here to be swayed by the prospects of payment-free post-graduation years at other institutions.
The College should not wait for Harvard and Yale to follow Princeton, as was done with some other financial aid policies. The time to level the playing field is now.
One committee. One report.
This is one area where Dartmouth should be spending its money if it truly wants to get the "highest" return.
