Recruiting and Financial Aid

[mnagowski]

The Sun is running an excellent article on the impact that the recent sea change in financial aid policies at certain institutions will have on Ivy recruiting.

http://cornellsun.com/node/27969

Many coaches note that these changes in aid packages have been occurring slowly over the years, but became far more drastic in the past year as the financial aid offerings improved.

"How they're packaging all their students — not just their athletes — has drastically changed in the last two to three years," said men's hockey coach Mike Schafer '86. "In the last two or three years, we've lost kids who obviously received better financial aid packages to other Ivy League institutions. It's a new phenomenon for everybody involved, and it's something we're trying to adjust to and get more information on."

"We have numerous cases [of recruits now being lost due to far superior financial aid at other Ivies] and they spread the gamut of all sports," said Penn Director of Athletics Steve Bilsky. "There's no trend that I see that indicates it's being done as a strategy [for specific sports]."

Of course, Schafer has always had to compete with hockey scholarships at Clarkson, RPI, etc.

It's become pretty evident that antitrust laws are certainly posing a big problem for those who want to see parity in the league.

[Rosey]

I see competition here as a good thing.  IMO, it would ultimately be better for future Cornell alumni if Harvard took an extra .025% (edit: that should be 0.25%) of its endowment every year and simply stopped charging tuition entirely.  Can you imagine any hotter fire to light under the Cornell administration's ass than forcing them to compete with a more prestigious school that is now free to attend?

Kyle

[cbuckser]

Kudos to the Daily Sun for investigating this.  Since Harvard, Yale, and Princeton announced their tremendous improvements in financial aid packages for the middle- and upper-middle-class students, I have wondered how these changes would impact Cornell's ability to recruit student-athletes, as well as whether Cornell could maintain its yield of admitted applicants who matriculate at Cornell.

[Trotsky]

[quote krose]I see competition here as a good thing.  IMO, it would ultimately be better for future Cornell alumni if Harvard took an extra .025% of its endowment every year and simply stopped charging tuition entirely.  Can you imagine any hotter fire to light under the Cornell administration's ass than forcing them to compete with a more prestigious school that is now free to attend?[/quote]If Cornell just took a couple points uptick on the pork the Engineering school gets from grants to turn dolphins into stealth missile delivery systems, we could eliminate tuition completely.


I'm with you all the way.  I hope Harvard, Yale and Princeton comp their entire student body. The Noyes family's personal play pen needs to learn to compete.  Dartmouth... well, they remain one of New Hampshire's finest prep schools.

[RichH]

[quote cbuckser]Kudos to the Daily Sun for investigating this.  Since Harvard, Yale, and Princeton announced their tremendous improvements in financial aid packages for the middle- and upper-middle-class students, I have wondered how these changes would impact Cornell's ability to recruit student-athletes, as well as whether Cornell could maintain its yield of admitted applicants who matriculate at Cornell.[/quote]

Agreed.  This is a really good "wake up, people" story and can be applied to top academic applicants as well.  I'm glad the Sun got some pretty candid quotes from the coaches interviewed.

[Trotsky]

[quote metaezra]It's become pretty evident that antitrust laws are certainly posing a big problem for those who want to see parity in the league.[/quote]?

[Jim Hyla]

[quote krose]I see competition here as a good thing.  IMO, it would ultimately be better for future Cornell alumni if Harvard took an extra .025% of its endowment every year and simply stopped charging tuition entirely.  Can you imagine any hotter fire to light under the Cornell administration's ass than forcing them to compete with a more prestigious school that is now free to attend?

Kyle[/quote]

Unfortunately the reason that Harvard can afford to do this and Cornell can't is not directly due to any administration, theirs or ours. It's due to their huge endowment which comes from donations from alumni and others. You can argue that if the administration were different then more alumni would be donating. For some reason Cornell alumni don't donate anywhere near as much as some other Ivy institutions, but I don't believe the current administration is the main problem. It has been true forever. So you'd have to say that all our  administrations were at fault. We have a major campaign going on now, but when you look at the percentage of alumni who donate it's quite small.

How many of you donate unrestricted gifts or gifts for scholarships. If you can't afford to donate much or any, do you work with your local alumni association or club when they are asking for solicitations? We can all help in our own way.

[Jim Hyla]

[quote Trotsky][quote metaezra]It's become pretty evident that antitrust laws are certainly posing a big problem for those who want to see parity in the league.[/quote]?[/quote]

The problem came about when the group of (whatever number of schools) was taken to court and told they could not continue to agree to offer the same package to all accepted applicants.

The group used to get together, once all applicants were accepted, and decide on aid packages for them. They made sure each institution gave compareable packages. The goal was to have students accept schools by where they wanted to go and not just by money. This was ruled illegal, so here we are.

[mnagowski]

[quote Jim Hyla][quote Trotsky][quote metaezra]It's become pretty evident that antitrust laws are certainly posing a big problem for those who want to see parity in the league.[/quote]?[/quote]

The problem came about when the group of (whatever number of schools) was taken to court and told they could not continue to agree to offer the same package to all accepted applicants.

The group used to get together, once all applicants were accepted, and decide on aid packages for them. They made sure each institution gave compareable packages. The goal was to have students accept schools by where they wanted to go and not just by money. This was ruled illegal, so here we are.[/quote]

What Jim said. I suspect that this part will be covered in the future articles that the Sun will run, but the Daily Pennsylvanian did a pretty good job summarizing the issue last week:

http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2008/02/14/Sports/The-Great.Divide-3209408.shtml

Two decades ago, league-wide competition over financial aid would have been impossible. Before 1991, if a student had been admitted to more than one Ivy, the financial-aid package from each school would have been identical.

Admissions officials from every university met regularly to ensure that differences in the aid packages were reconciled before sending out letters of admission. In theory, financial considerations within the Ivy League were removed from the students' decision-making process. Each Ivy offered the same package to an individual.

The U.S. Justice Department took aim at that practice in 1989. It sued the eight Ivy colleges and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, alleging that equating financial-aid rewards violated the Sherman Antitrust Act as an illegal restraint on interstate trade.

The court fight dragged on until May 1991, when the Ivy institutions signed a consent decree agreeing to stop the collusion. They said the cost of fighting the case any more was prohibitive; then-Penn president Sheldon Hackney said at the time that the University had spent more than $400,000 in legal fees.

Under the ruling, the League preserved the right to some collective actions - such as the collective decision to prohibit athletic scholarships.

Since 1991, each Ivy has been free to define financial need by itself. The schools went by essentially the same standards until recently, Bilsky said.

"Now, over the last couple of years, starting with Princeton and now with Harvard, particularly, changing the focus," he added, "You're getting into this potential conflict."

[Rosey]

[quote Jim Hyla]Unfortunately the reason that Harvard can afford to do this and Cornell can't is not directly due to any administration, theirs or ours. It's due to their huge endowment which comes from donations from alumni and others.[/quote]
Agreed.  I'm simply pointing out that reality doesn't care how much they whine.  Simply put, they will be faced with this in the not-so-distant future, and they're going to have to do something about it or be priced out of the market for the best students.

Kyle

[daredevilcu]

[quote Jim Hyla][quote Trotsky][quote metaezra]It's become pretty evident that antitrust laws are certainly posing a big problem for those who want to see parity in the league.[/quote]?[/quote]

The problem came about when the group of (whatever number of schools) was taken to court and told they could not continue to agree to offer the same package to all accepted applicants.

The group used to get together, once all applicants were accepted, and decide on aid packages for them. They made sure each institution gave compareable packages. The goal was to have students accept schools by where they wanted to go and not just by money. This was ruled illegal, so here we are.[/quote]

That sounds pretty reasonable to me, not to mention very logical.  I'm surprised that violates antitrust laws as long as the schools were being fair toward the students after accepting them.

[Jacob 03]

[quote daredevilcu]That sounds pretty reasonable to me, not to mention very logical.  I'm surprised that violates antitrust laws as long as the schools were being fair toward the students after accepting them.[/quote]Really?  I'm surprised it took so long to be struck down, and it seems quite unreasonable to me.  The idea of not having tuition costs playing a large role in school choice is noble enough.  But the reality is that these schools went about doing this in a way that only benefited the schools.  Many students had to spend thousands of dollars more for the same education they would have received anyway, all so that stingier Ivies could have a good crack at selection.  

It actually seems to be a culmination of the worst aspects of the Ancient Eight, between the clubiness, elitism, and sense of entitlement.  

Anyway, the idea that Cornell would have to dip into its moderate (compared only to a few other super-elites) endowment to stay competitive is a bit of a stretch, too.  Cornell spends a ridiculous amount of money on a lot of things the other Ivies don't.  I sure would like to keep most of that stuff, but Cornell's definitely had the opportunity to trim expenses in order to make tuition more affordable.  It simply has chosen not to do so.

[KeithK]

[quote Jacob 03][quote daredevilcu]That sounds pretty reasonable to me, not to mention very logical.  I'm surprised that violates antitrust laws as long as the schools were being fair toward the students after accepting them.[/quote]Really?  I'm surprised it took so long to be struck down, and it seems quite unreasonable to me.  The idea of not having tuition costs playing a large role in school choice is noble enough.  But the reality is that these schools went about doing this in a way that only benefited the schools.  Many students had to spend thousands of dollars more for the same education they would have received anyway, all so that stingier Ivies could have a good crack at selection.  

It actually seems to be a culmination of the worst aspects of the Ancient Eight, between the clubiness, elitism, and sense of entitlement.  

Anyway, the idea that Cornell would have to dip into its moderate (compared only to a few other super-elites) endowment to stay competitive is a bit of a stretch, too.  Cornell spends a ridiculous amount of money on a lot of things the other Ivies don't.  I sure would like to keep most of that stuff, but Cornell's definitely had the opportunity to trim expenses in order to make tuition more affordable.  It simply has chosen not to do so.[/quote]
I don't have anywhere near the problem with the old Ivy practice that Jacob does.  But it's clearly a violation of anti-trust law.  The schools were conspiring to fix prices.  Whether or not they were being "fair" is beside the point.  And what is fair anyway?  What if GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda (etc.) got together and fixed car prices at what they decided was a "fair" price?  Would this be a violation?  The idea of the law is to let the market decide what is fair - this usually benefits the consumer in the end.

Of course, Congress has every right to change the law to exempt colleges in this regard.  I haven't heard of any pressure to do this, which leads me to believe that students are better off now.  Except when a kid subjects himself to four years somewhere other than Ithaca because some school gave him more money.  (Especially if the kid has a great slap shot.)

[Rosey]

I sure would like to keep most of that stuff, but Cornell's definitely had the opportunity to trim expenses in order to make tuition more affordable. It simply has chosen not to do so.

I agree.  It's kind of sad that cutting costs is the sort of "thinking out of the box" that academia doesn't really understand.  But I guess that's what happens when most of your operating costs aren't funded by selling your product.

Kyle

[daredevilcu]

Well, in the limited knowledge I have of the situation (which extends no farther than this thread) I don't really qualify to pass judgement on the issue.  Sounds like you guys know what you're talking about, and that it was probably the right way to go.  I'm not a fan of business law, it's immensely boring, despite being extremely important.