David Hylden

n Sept. 29, 2006, Columbia University launched The Columbia Campaign and subsequently made history by embarking on the largest academic fund-raising endeavor to date. Through an interactive simulcast relayed to audiences in London, Hong Kong and New York, President Bollinger announced that over the next five years Columbia will be seeking $4 billion in donations. This money will be allocated in a variety of ways to enhance Columbia University’s role as a premier academic and research institution able to benefit the world around it. Realizing that the University’s students are Columbia’s key assets, a large portion of this money will be allocated to the undergrad financial aid program. This was the subject of a special e-mail sent out to the entire Columbia community, in which President Bollinger proudly announced that at the beginning of the next school year, tuition would be free for those families with an annual income of less than $50,000. The announcement was cause for celebration, as underprivileged students will have a better chance of enjoying the Columbia experience and fewer students will graduate overburdened with debt.

In addition to helping students better afford their education here, this program allows the administration to show the rest of the world that Columbia University cares about socioeconomic diversity. However, this apparently benevolent offer may not be what the administration wants its students and potential donors to believe. Unlike their Ivy League counterparts Harvard and Princeton, Columbia has not offered to eliminate any of the other costs students incur, such as room and board. Considering the amount of aid that would go to families who qualify for this program – around $35,000 – and the aid offered by other Ivies, the offer actually isn’t that generous at all. This aside, our real concern as students and activists should be the troubling ramifications this offer will create. This policy aimed at improving socioeconomic diversity on campus may in fact perpetuate discrimination in our community by leaving out one group of Columbia students. As students concerned with equality, whether in relation to the Manhattanville expansion or immigrant rights, we cannot accept policies that will hinder our efficacy as a united student body interested in pursuing knowledge and effecting change within our world.

Of Columbia’s undergraduate schools, the tuition offer previously mentioned was only extended to Columbia College (CC) and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS); General Studies (GS) was excluded. GS is the undergraduate school for non-traditional students, or those who did not follow a conventional path to college. While they are typically older, with an average age of 29, they take the same classes and receive the same diploma as any other undergraduate. Unlike the small percentage of CC or SEAS students who would qualify for this new “free tuition” offer, a large percentage of GS would benefit. GS students were irate upon learning that they would not reap the benefits of this offer. Echoing his fellow GS students, Niko Cunningham claimed this was merely further evidence that the University sees them as “second-class citizens.”

Why is it, then, that GS was left out of the new program? Is the administration really just seeking to ensure that underprivileged students? Continue struggling to finance their own education? Furthermore, is this simply the remainder of a history of discriminatory policies, or the result of politics within our own bureaucratic system? The answer seems to be a little of both. In addition to the politics behind competing with other Ivies, as the Dean of GS, Dean Awn says, “we are victims of our own history.”

In response to many questions and accusations from a disgruntled GS student body, the University provided an overarching structural reason for GS’s exclusion. The GS financial aid structure awards merit-based benefits, rather than the need-based benefits awarded by CC, SEAS, Barnard, and Jewish Theological Seminary. Thus, they claim that the stipulation for eligibility being need-based (annual incomes less than $50,000) is incompatible with the current GS structure. While this may sound reasonable, further exploration implies that both political and historical aspects may actually be the key motivations behind this decision.

Dean Awn explains that with an average age of 29, a need-based policy would be “intrusive.” He says our students “would find it embarrassing if not strange to go back to their parents and tell them to report all of their assets.” This is probably true; however, GS students are already required to report their financial details through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. According to the government, a student is considered to be independent if he is 24 years old, and thus most GS students are categorized as independents. GS, just like CC and SEAS, utilizes the FAFSA to determine a student’s ability to pay the necessary costs with the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC). While GS awards scholarships based mostly upon merit, they do slightly factor in need, and the EFC is also used to determine eligibility for government grants and loans, which are allocated by Columbia. Thus, the administration already has the information necessary to administer the new program with ease; they simply need choose to abide by federally determined structures which prevent 29-year-old students from receiving the finances of their parents.

To this point, Dean Awn argues that fighting for similar aid structures is not what students should be striving for. Instead he says “it would be much more to the advantage of the GS student population to argue that the equity issue ought to be the amount of money and the percentage of tuition available for financial aid.” In other words, efforts for equality should be made so as to ensure that GS is able to return the same percentage of tuition to their students in financial aid as CC and SEAS. Dean Awn describes this disparity as “a serious problem.”

Of the collective tuition that CC charges its students each year, 29 percent is paid by the school in the form of financial aid. In contrast, GS only offers 20 percent. In 2003, first-years received an average of $27,203 in aid, including $5,975 in work study and federal loans. Thus, these CC first-year students received an average of $21,228 that they will not have to pay back. In contrast to this, GS students begin with relatively small scholarships that may increase a few thousand dollars annually based upon proven merit. Aside from a handful of named scholarships, the largest grant award for GS students is $18,000. Thus, the few GS students lucky to reach this scholarship by their senior year are still receiving $3,000 less than the average first-year CC student.

This disparity becomes evidently burdensome upon the GS student when one looks at student debt upon graduation. Last year the average graduating CC debt was $16,358. The vast majority of GS students take out more loans annually, and the administration concedes a GS graduating debt is likely over $50,000, with many students approaching $80,000 or $90,000. This disparity has dire consequences upon the GS graduate. Dean Awn wisely points out that one should also consider the parents’ debt when looking at CC students. While this is true, an important consequence of this disparity still remains – GS students must choose their future jobs based upon an ability to afford loan payments, while CC students can engage in fulfilling and/or low-paying jobs that are beneficial to the global community.

The administration’s policy of discriminating against GS students has negative effects upon the community outside of Columbia. The administration explicitly states that they want Columbia to be a model for other academic institutions around the world, creating global citizens that can help to better our planet. What the administration does not mention is that studies have shown students receiving grant aid are much more likely to donate money back to their alma mater than students who take out loans. Considering that the new financial aid offer excludes GS and doesn’t help low-income Columbia students as much as it claims to, the University is most likely utilizing this offer not as a means to increase diversity, but as a political asset with which to increase donations.

As students who care about how Columbia affects the surrounding community and the world at large, we must be concerned with policies of discrimination taking place right here at Columbia. The University constantly reminds GS students that they are equal to their CC/SEAS counterparts; it is just that each student has been arbitrarily allocated to a specific school, but these current policies are only widening the gap between schools. As a united student body Columbia could be much more effective in its endeavors to create change in the world around us. We should not let the remnants of past prejudices or current administrative policies create disparities between students. As Susannah says, “the soul of this university cannot survive” if the administration continues to treat GS as second-class citizens. We do not have to be the “victims of our own history.” Together there can be equality, and together there can be growth and a hope for greater change in the future.