Stanford Jumps on the Free Tuition Bandwagon.

Stanford is one of the most prestigious universities in the country and boasts one of the largest endowments (a whopping $15.3 billion in 2006). Following the lead of Harvard and other top-tier schools, it’s using that cheese to offer free tuition to students from families making less than 100k a year.

This is obviously good news for exceptional students from middle- and low-income families, but less so for smaller colleges without Harvard, Yale or Stanford bank and who pull from the same pool of high-achieving applicants.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • LH

    I think you’re right, that Stanford’s move and the trend it points to isn’t good news for smaller, competitive colleges. That said, this is a good problem to have … kids going to schools like Harvard and Stanfor because to do so is less expensive than schools like Williams College, for example.

  • This is definitely not good for the University of California, especially campuses like UCLA and UC Berkeley which compete with the likes of Stanford, Ivy Leagues and USC (not that I think much of USC). A lot of the students who opt not to attend UC campuses go to other top private institutions. This is just going to make the competition for top Latino and Black students tougher.

  • aprilleticia

    While some smaller schools will have trouble keeping up, I think it’s important to note that others, like Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst, (which btw are all a part of a five college consortium in Western Massachusetts), have been committed to enrolling economic diversity for several years.

    From the NYT:

    Opinion — “Enrolling Economic Diversity” — 2002
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E0D71131F937A35756C0A9649C8B63

    Education — “Elite Colleges Open New Door to Low Income Youth — 2007
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/education/27grad.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

  • Tasha

    is the pool of students so small?
    really? i would think this opens up so many more opportunities

  • Tasha

    oh and is this only for undergrad?

  • Tasha stole my question..lol

  • Tasha
  • Tasha

    this would be Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Stanford and now Brown

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