Thanks to Dartmouth's outstanding financial aid program, my family and I pay only a small fraction of the College's sticker price. While I'm grateful to have been handed the world's finest undergraduate opportunities at so little personal cost, it's unsettling to realize that in one year I'm sponging tens of thousands of dollars of other people's money. As much as I like Dartmouth, I can't say I value being here enough to justify the massive burden the College is bearing on my behalf. It may be time to make selfish free-riders like myself assume more financial responsibility for their educations.
Dramatic increases in grant-based financial aid have led to widening disparity in the prices students pay to attend Dartmouth. The growth in spending on need-based undergraduate scholarships from about $30 million in 2000-2001 to a projected $80 million in 2011-2012 has led to greater assistance for some, but has presumably contributed to the simultaneous rise in cost of attendance from $33,210 to $55,365. As noble as it is to want to help those with less, the College wouldn't need to charge students from wealthier backgrounds so exorbitantly if others had to carry more of their own weight.
Those who pay full price have valid reason for resentment. Although I can't speak on behalf of other aid recipients, I believe my parents are being unfairly rewarded for making choices they knew would likely prevent them from being able to send their kids to expensive private colleges. There's nothing wrong with raising five children or having one parent stay at home, but every decision has its trade-offs. Other parents chose not to have as many kids or spend more time working in order to be able to provide the very best educational opportunities for their children. Those who carefully planned for college are getting the short end of the stick.
Need-based scholarships that discourage financially responsible behavior should be replaced with loans. Students of relatively limited means who will become doctors, lawyers or entrepreneurs ought to be able to repay loans to the College out of their future earnings. Dartmouth alumni, with a $134,000 median salary 10 years after graduation higher than graduates of any other college in the country are particularly well-situated to give back. While many indebted graduates would undoubtedly feel pressure to choose jobs based on salary if required to pay back loans, this may or may not be such a bad thing. A reasonable compromise could be to follow the lead of institutions such as Yale Law School, which relieve loan obligations for students who pursue lower-paying careers in public interest or government.
The notion of having to work to pay for one's education should not be so alien to people. Although many believe in universal access to higher education, no one is entitled to all the perks that come with going to Dartmouth. Students qualified for admission have hardly any more "right" to attend a luxurious Ivy League school than a person with a driver's license has a "right" to drive an expensive sports car. We usually can't afford the "best" in life why should some be entitled to one of the world's most costly undergraduate experiences? Contrary to the Financial Aid Office's much-touted philosophy, there's nothing wrong with some people deciding that the College simply costs too much for them.
From a business standpoint, it makes little sense for Dartmouth to pay for a student's room, board and world-class education and then receive nothing in return besides some limited socioeconomic diversity that the College is only too ready to boast about. Financial aid should be used selectively as a tool for attracting students with extraordinary merit or personal backgrounds, not blindly applied to predominantly middle class students who are very likely to earn six-figure salaries just a few years after graduation. Maybe Dartmouth could curb its ever more outrageous sticker price if it stopped redistributing so much wealth at the expense of students from higher-income backgrounds.
