Dartmouth and its Ivy League peers may see a substantial decrease in federal funding for their financial aid programs if House Republicans have their way in new legislation to overhaul a 30-year-old aid system.
But Dartmouth officials said that in the event of cuts, the College would remain committed to its long-standing need-blind admissions policy.
Proponents of the legislation argue that hundreds of millions of federal aid dollars have been unfairly channeled to wealthy universities at the expense of institutions with a larger base of low-income students and substantially smaller endowments.
The current federal aid system in place grants select institutions a minimum base amount to supplement institutional financial aid programs.
Those guarantees were established in the 1970s through demonstrations of relative need and shrewd negotiations. Republicans claim that current funding levels are not proportionate to the actual number of low-income students enrolled at higher learning institutions.
The Ivy League is under particular attack because of its enormous institutional endowments and relatively few low-income students.
The New York Times found that Ivy League schools received five to 12 times the median nationwide amount per financial aid applicant to run their low-interest loan programs in 2000-01.
That same investigation found that Ivy League universities were also given five to eight times more than the median to compensate for work-study jobs, and received five to 20 times the median amount of grant money earmarked for poor students.
Unlike the Ivy League member schools, most national colleges and universities are without substantial endowments and enroll a far greater number of low-income students. The current distribution scheme, however, largely ignores the disparity.
In his recently submitted budget, President Bush described current aid distribution as inequitable and called on Congress to revise existing practices.
Provost Barry Scherr told The Dartmouth that if Republicans in the House are successful in advancing the proposed legislation, Dartmouth will prepare itself against any potential fallout.
"Clearly, whatever we would lose we would have to make it up in another way," Scherr said. "We are committed to need-blind admissions."
Scherr said that in the event the legislation is signed into law, Dartmouth's financial program would be supplemented, at least temporarily, by its operating budget.
Scherr remarked that though federal funding for the College's financial aid program is significant, "it is not as substantial a portion of the financial aid budget as it used to be," explaining that the College's financial aid costs, like those of other Ivy League universities, have climbed far greater than increases in government aid.
Congressional staff members say that specific legislation will surface in coming weeks to reduce set-asides by 40 percent within the next six years . Monies which are saved over the course of that period would then be redistributed according to a new formula that would better support low-income students.
It is expected that community colleges and for-profit schools will gain the most from the change, in addition to southern and western schools that have seen increased enrollment over the past decade. Ivy League and other northeastern schools are expected to see the most dramatic federal funding decreases.
