loans, which at best makes for heavy debt burdens by the time they graduate; at worst, she says, “it adds the risk of extending the number of years it takes them to graduate, or even prevents some from graduating.” Compared to its peers, Skid- more is in the lower third when it comes to the average debt of graduates. For the class of 2011 it was $21,000, well below New York State and national averages.
Tuition economics That Skidmore has boosted its financial aid budget and its diversity while maintain- ing its median SAT scores and even improving other aca- demic measures is remark- able, given 2008’s global fi- nancial crash and sluggish economy ever since. In the decade of 2001–11 American incomes from all strata, even the top 5%, did not rise, ac- cording to a College Board report co-authored by Sandy Baum, professor emerita of economics. With incomes still shrinking, the average student’s net price (that’s out-of-pocket, work-study, and loan commitments,
ernment funding for postsec- ondary education fell again, by 5%.
CALCULATING NEEDS AND AWARDS
LIKE ALMOST ALL COLLEGES, Skidmore builds each aid package starting with a federal, low-interest Stafford or Per - kins loan, usually restricted to $3,000 or $4,000; next it adds a federally subsidized work-study job, usually limited to about $2,000; it looks for small state or federal grants to add; and then it tries to fill the rest of the need with grants from its own aid budget. Last year Skidmore’s contributions ranged from $2,000 to $56,000 depending on demonstrated need. One example: Felipe had $5,000 in savings; his parents
had $280,000 in home equity, $30,000 in savings, and an annual income of $105,000. Skidmore asked his parents to contribute $8,700 of their income, $3,000 from savings, and $10,000 from a Parents Loan and asked Felipe for $2,000 of summer-job earnings and $1,000 from his savings. Skid- more offered the rest, their calculated need of $31,700, as a $26,200 College grant, a federal work-study job for $2,000, and $3,500 in federal loans. A second scenario: Lisa lived with her divorced mother, who had $60,000 in equity and an income of $62,000 with child support. Skidmore asked her mom to pay $5,000 and her dad to pay $6,000 (in 10 installments over the year), while Lisa contributed summer-job earnings of $2,000. That left $43,400 in need, which was covered by $37,900 in Skidmore grants, a $2,000 work-study job, and $3,500 in federal loans.
apart from grant aid) at a four-year school is up 4% from last year—double the rate of inflation. The average debt for a private-college graduate, $29,900 in 2011, also rose more than inflation, at 3.5%. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted gov-
BUDGETING FINANCIAL AID Aid as % of Skidmore budget
15.4% 16.7% 77.4% 5.9% 19.3% 74.4% 2004 Aid from operating budget 14 SCOPE SPRING 2013 2005 Aid from gifts/grants 16.7% 6.4% 14.0% 80.5% 2006 17.2% 5.5% 16.1% 75.8% 2007 Aid from endowed scholarships 16.8% 8.1% 15.8% 77.0% 2008 17.7% 7.2%
But in her analyses Baum also emphasizes longer-term trends, which are still positive for students hoping to attend private colleges. There, tui tion and fees (adjusted for infla- tion) over the past decade rose just 2.4%, compared to 3% and 4.6% in the two pre- vious decades. By contrast, those same costs for public colleges and universities grew twice as fast in the past de - cade, at 5.2%. Which is not to say there aren’t warning signs for privates. Baum’s concern is that “even the incomes of people at the top are going down, and those are the peo- ple who are supposed to be able to pay without dipping into their savings.”
At Skidmore 56% of fami- lies do pay on their own. An often-forgotten fact, however, is that the true cost of educat- ing each Skidmore student is higher than tuition and fees. In 2011–12 the cost was pegged at $62,700, a full $9,000 more than that year’s $53,700 comprehensive fee. In effect, every student is sub- sidized to some extent by
Skidmore’s endowment earnings, donations, and other in- come. Still, the post-2008 economy has changed both the wallets and the mindsets of full-pay families, according to Bates and Post-Lundquist. “Many of our fellow schools in
JON REINFURT
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