On Jan. 25, College President Sian Leah Beilock published an editorial in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Is a Four-Year Degree Worth It?” The piece argued that American universities have “a trust problem” and should prioritize affordable tuition, post-graduate outcomes, institutional neutrality, enforced medians and standardized testing in admissions.
One month later, The Dartmouth is investigating the state of those five priorities on Dartmouth’s own campus.
1. Affordable Tuition
In the op-ed, Beilock wrote that “if the public no longer believes [that college] is a good investment, that’s a problem.”
“Solving it starts with lowering the cost,” she wrote. “Every leading university needs to demonstrate a measurable commitment to affordability.”
The College’s undergraduate cost of attendance is $95,490 — a 5% increase from the previous year.
In 2024, Beilock announced that the College would be removing any parent contribution to tuition costs for families who make under $125,000 a year with normal assets.
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, economics professor Bruce Sacerdote ’90 wrote that he is “overjoyed” with the College’s financial aid program.
“What a wonderful statement about our commitment to access and about the generosity of Dartmouth alumni and our priorities,” he wrote.
Sacerdote also referenced the $12.5 million donation in 2024 to support financial aid initiatives from The Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae — an organization of alumnae who have each donated $100,000 to the College.
“The Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae has a leadership position in pushing the financial aid agenda and expanding our affordability and access,” he wrote.
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote that the College’s financial aid budget has increased by 100% in the past 10 years. She added that for the Class of 2029, the average financial aid award was “nearly $74,750” for the 2025-2026 school year.
2. Post-Graduate Outcomes
The second point in Beilock’s op-ed was that “return on investment matters.”
“A college education is one of the largest investments a family will ever make, and there must be an undeniable return,” Beilock wrote. “Are our graduates getting jobs, pursuing meaningful work and contributing to their communities?”
Inaugural executive director of the Center for Career Design Joseph Catrino said that his office is working on “building out long term career mobility measurements.”
“We want to up the stakes on saying a Dartmouth student can not only land their first destination, but be successful long term,” Catrino said. “We’re going to reach out to different years after graduation, — three, five, seven and 10 years out — and ask: Are you making the money you wanted to make? Are you doing what you wanted to do? Did internships set you up for success?”
Last month, the College announced that the Center for Career Design had raised $30 million in endowed gifts to support internship opportunities for undergraduate students.
“Our students are landing,” Catrino said. “We have a lot of really good, positive outcomes.”
3. Institutional Neutrality
Beilock said that universities should “re-center higher education on learning rather than political posturing.”
“Too often,” Beilock wrote, “colleges and universities have participated in the culture wars. The result is an environment in which students and faculty feel they must toe an ideological line rather than explore ideas that fall outside prevailing norms.”
The College’s linchpin policy on governing administrative ideology is institutional restraint, adopted on Dec. 10, 2024, under which the College does not make statements about political issues not related to Dartmouth’s academic mission.
Beilock cited institutional restraint in her decision not to sign an April 22 letter condemning the Trump administration’s revocations of federal funding from universities. The College has joined lawsuits against the Trump administration related to cuts to federal funding for research grants.
The policy has roots in the 1967 “Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action” from the University of Chicago — where Beilock served as the executive vice provost.
“This neutrality as an institution has its complement in the fullest freedom for its faculty and students as individuals to participate in political action and social protest,” the report reads. “It finds its complement, too, in the obligation of the university to provide a forum for the most searching and candid discussion of public issues.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a prominent free-speech organization, cites the 1967 report as “profoundly relevant and useful today.”
On Sep. 26, the College was ranked highest in the Ivy League for freedom of expression by FIRE, who cited institutional restraint in their report.
Institutional restraint has also garnered the College national press coverage as the “Switzerland” of the Ivy League. Some community members, including former labor secretary Robert Reich ’68, have responded to the label by drawing attention to appeasement of Nazi Germany. Others have credited institutional restraint for the College remaining the only Ivy League school to largely avoid the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts.
“Two-thirds” of the incoming Class of 2030 identified “dialogue” as a factor in choosing Dartmouth, college spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth.
“Close to half, 46%, identified institutional restraint” in particular, Barnello added.
Palestine Solidarity Coalition member Roan Wade ’25 said that the idea that an “institution with an $8 billion endowment, committed to and getting involved in the development of thought and ideas that influence politics” can be neutral is “hollow.”
“Dartmouth cannot claim neutrality when its endowment is materially invested in and funding the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Wade said.
Wade added that institutional restraint is a way of “appealing to conservatism.”
“Beilock was the only president of any institution of higher education quoted in [the Trump administration’s Oct. 1 “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”],” Wade said. “The fact that the Trump administration is citing Beilock as the model for higher education clearly shows that institutional neutrality is not an apolitical gesture, but a deeply, deeply conservative one.”
The College rejected the Trump administration’s compact on Oct. 18.
4. Enforced Medians
In her op-ed, Beilock wrote that colleges should “emphasize equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.”
“One quiet way we’re undermining trust is by erasing meaningful performance distinctions. Grade inflation — especially at elite universities — reduces a transcript’s significance,” Beilock wrote.
Beilock cited “forced medians” — a policy held by the College’s economics and government departments as a B+ — as a manner for distinction. She also noted that Dartmouth is the only Ivy League to report median grades on student transcripts.
Government professor William Wohlforth said that faculty in his department “believe [the B+ median] is useful for students to be able to be recognized for outstanding learning in class.”
“It’s kind of useful that there are at least some courses in which there’s an actual distribution,” he said. “You can kind of infer something about the student’s level of effort or level of brilliance or creativity or disposition towards hard work in that transcript.”
Dartmouth Student Government South House senator Jason Zhu ’28 said that while a “large portion” of students believe that grade inflation is a significant problem, there is also a “broad acknowledgement” that the College’s current enforced median grade policy is “not ideal.”
“Everyone realizes that it pushes people away from government and economics, and it’s genuinely not fair for students who may be interested in those two areas and have to step out of them,” Zhu said.
“Either we do away with the median, or we have a uniform enforced median across the board,” Zhu added. “A uniform median would make Dartmouth a pioneer in trying to get rid of grade inflation, but it would make our transcripts look worse in comparison to other colleges.”
Sixty-four percent of respondents to DSG’s Student Issues Survey this year said they did not believe course medians were a net academic benefit to students at Dartmouth, according to data provided by Zhu.
Of students who said medians do not have an academic benefit, 52.5% also said Dartmouth should not get rid of the section on transcripts listing the number of classes a student was above, at or below median. Zhu said not wanting the median section on transcripts removed “probably” indicates a respondent was above median in the majority of their classes.
60% of students who said medians have an academic benefit were in favor of removing the median section from transcripts, according to data from the Student Issues Survey. This year’s Student Issues Survey — which was sent to The Dartmouth ahead of its release to campus — had 1,340 respondents.
5. Standardized Testing in Admissions
In her fifth and final priority, Beilock wrote that “testing is important.”
“Taken as part of a holistic applicant review, test scores help us fulfill the American promise of upward mobility based on talent and effort,” she wrote.
She cited a faculty study that led the College to reinstate the standardized testing requirement for applicants to the Class of 2029 and beyond — the first Ivy League school to do so.
Sacerdote, who was a part of the faculty study, said that he and his colleagues had “several key findings” which led to the reinstatement, particularly for students from “less-advantaged” backgrounds.
“Going test optional added a dimension of confusion about whether to submit and not to submit,” he wrote. “This dilemma is particularly acute for less advantaged applicants who under-submit and do not realize that their test score is an asset particularly when viewed in the context of their high school.”
Barnello wrote in her statement that seven of the eight Ivy League universities followed the College in the reinstatement of required test scores, with the exception of Columbia University.
Andrew Pham ’27 said that while he submitted his test scores, they “shouldn’t be required” because a “bad test score might not reflect a student’s ability to perform,” citing the “nuances” related to socioeconomic status.
“If we’re holistically looking at applications, I don’t think test scores should be required,” Pham said. “Like, we think test scores are important, but we won’t bar you from applying if you don't have a test score.”
Tierney Flavin ’28 is a senior news reporter covering College politics. She is from Kansas City, Mo. and plans to major in Government and Sociology.
Jackson Hyde ’28 is a senior news reporter, who writes about artificial intelligence and technology at the College. He is from Los Angeles, Calif., and is majoring in Government modified with Philosophy.
