Conn’s Own Budget Crunch

This past August, a student of the class of 2011 withdrew from Connecticut College because he could no longer pay the tuition. Although on financial aid, his freshman year he was forced to take out a $13,000 private loan to cover the remainder of tuition not paid by the college.

His sophomore year financial package was less, and he was forced to take out a further $20,000 as a private loan. His junior year, his financial aid package shrank for a second time. He would have had to take out a further $25,000 in private loans stay at Connecticut College. He is now attending a state school for his junior year, with an accumulated debt of $45,000 to $50,000.

If he had taken the third loan to stay at Connecticut, he would potentially be close to $100,000 in debt by the time he graduated.

I, myself am in debt $1,700 and struggling to save with my campus job. It is a surprisingly heavy burden to have little money.

But to be in debt $50,000, without much parental help? The thought terrifies me.

Why did this happen? Is it the recession? Is it making colleges raise their tuitions? Is it straining families to pay the tuition? Is it both?

According to the New York Times, the cost of liberal arts colleges nationwide has risen 4.4 percent this fall, or $1,096 to $26,273.

Ten private liberal arts colleges cross the $50,000 mark this fall, with Sarah Lawrence leading with $54,410. Compared to more inexpensive state schools, the cozy private school education may look less attractive to middle class families smarting from the budget crunch.

While most Ivy League giants like Yale and Harvard, with endowments in the…. billions, continue to operate normally, smaller… liberal arts colleges are suffering. Sarah Lawrence’s endowment, for example, plummeted from $77 million in May 2007 to $65 million this fall, a sixteen percent drop since the beginning of the recession. In a recent survey 800 private schools found their endowments dropped by 23 percent this year.

What does it mean for us? Is Conn suffering as badly as the rest of them out there? According to Dean Ray, no. The school has a very conservative and secure financial system, meeting its financial goal of the year, something that many other liberal arts colleges have not done. Not a faculty member has been cut, no departments scratched and no extra-curriculars banished.  “Although the whole system is under a lot of pressure,” concedes the Dean, “Connecticut College is still doing rather well.”

Then why did a student withdraw for financial reasons? Has Conn’s financial aid dropped as its tuition rose? Another no. Although Connecticut College sits comfortably as the 8th most expensive school in the U.S. at $51,115, its financial aid matches the high tuition. As the college website states conveniently in the right hand corner of the home page, the average financial aid package is $32,500, $29,000 of which is in grant money. $29,000 you don’t have to pay back, with some $4,000 in low interest federal loans.

Yet the fact remains a student withdrew because it wasn’t enough. Big families with other kids going to school, single parents working one income, layoffs and foreclosures; even $29,000 is sometimes not enough after all is said and done. Is that the college’s fault? No, not necessarily; I’m here because of the grace of the school’s financial aid and I am indebted to it. It does, however, make you think twice about the 2 million dollars worth of windows in the new athletic center. This student could have been any of us, and I think it’s wise to remember this crisis can still pop the ConnColl bubble