Undergraduate Student Access - Cornell University Division of ...

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Cornell students whose families have adjustedgross incomes of $40,000 or less and reducingsuch loans for families with incomes between$40,000 and $60,000 would cost approximately$9.7 million in 2004-05 dollars.• Loans and Debt Burden – Cornell’s self-help expectation—thecombination of loans and work-studyemployment offered to students with demonstratedfinancial need that totals $10,580 for a typicalstudent in 2004-05—is high. A private study conductedin 2004 showed that Cornell’s typical selfhelplevel for endowed Ithaca freshmen is almosttwice as large as the average of Ivy League andselected research university peers. Self-help levelsfor upper-class students are about one and onehalftimes above the average for these institutions.Number and Percentage of UndergraduatesPer Institution Who Receive Federal PellGrant Awards for Low-Income Students(fall 2001; ranked in descending order of percent)UC – Berkeley (7,549)Columbia University (1,023)Cornell University (2,253)California Institute of Tech. (144)University of Chicago (507)Stanford University (855)University of Michigan (3,073)Johns Hopkins University (517)Emory University (776)Rice University (341)MIT (523)Univ. of Pennsylvania (1,157)Carnegie Mellon University (603)Georgetown University (691)Northwestern University (870)Dartmouth College (447)Vanderbilt University (609)Brown University (583)Duke University (629)Yale University (536)Harvard University (655)Washington University (544)University of Virginia (1,183)University of Notre Dame (660)Princeton University (350)Percentage of Undergraduate Enrollment0% 10% 20% 30% 40%The primary difference between Cornell and thisset of peers is the loan component of the self-helppackage. Decreasing this component of Cornell’sself-help packages for endowed Ithaca students toequal the median of these institutions would costapproximately $10 million in 2004-05 dollars.The growth in the use of debt to finance highereducation is part of a national landscape wherepersonal debt is used increasingly to access avariety of goods and services. Personal debt nowexceeds $10 trillion nationally, of which $7.5trillion is home mortgage debt. Educational loansremain a small fraction of that total, as studentsand their families borrow about $49 billion annuallythrough federally subsidized and unsubsidizedloan programs. (The use of commercial debt tofinance educational costs adds only marginally tothis total.) Nationally, the average undergraduatedebt for students who attended private doctoralinstitutions was $28,000 in 1999-2000. In 2001,those borrowers were repaying their student loansat an average of $260 per month.Of the 3,630 undergraduates who graduated fromCornell in 2003, 1,892 (or 52 percent) had someamount of packaged student debt. As the followingtable shows, the debt level at graduationaveraged $16,402, which was a decrease from theaverage of $16,651 in 2002. Debt levels variedwidely for graduates in 2003, ranging from $190to $59,273.Years Borrowed Count Average Debt1 168 $3,8492 273 $10,7953 375 $14,1504 959 $19,9495 66 $26,876All 1,892 $16,402While a debt of $16,402 for Cornell’s recent graduatesis not insignificant, it remains less than a newcar loan, which averaged $23,939 as of January2005. Although the university’s graduates appearcapable of handling this level of college debt, † theuniversity continues to monitor overall debt levelsof students and graduates.† Cornell’s undergraduate default rate was 2.5 percent forPerkins Loans in 2003 compared with a national averageof 8.9 percent and 1.1 percent in 2002 for Federal DirectLoans versus a national average of 5.2 percent.19
Distribution by Family Income Range ofThe Cornell Grant-Aid Population andThe U.S. Population at Large (age 45 to 54)PercentofTotal30%25%20%15%10%5%0%$0 - $9,999$10,000 - $19,999$20,000 - $29,999Cornell Grant (AGI)U.S. Population (45-54)$30,000 - $39,999$40,000 - $49,999$50,000 - $59,999$60,000 - $69,999$70,000 - $79,999$80,000 - $89,999Family Income Range• Middle-Income Students – The graph above usesfamily income to compare the distribution ofCornell’s grant recipient population with thepopulation of U.S. families where the head of thehousehold is between 45 and 54 years old (theage range of the typical undergraduate’s parents.)The university’s grant-aid population has a higherpercentage of low-income students than this segmentof the U.S. population. In addition, Cornellawards grant aid to students whose families havea wide variety of incomes (measured by adjustedgross income—AGI—as reported on federal taxreturns). Such distributions occur because Cornell’sdetermination of a student’s financial needtakes into account circumstances such as a familyhaving more than one dependent in collegesimultaneously or a significant loss suffered by afamily-owned business. Recently, Cornell adoptedthe “consensus approach,” which changed thetreatment of student and family assets (such as afamily residence) in a way that is more favorableto middle-income families. The university remainssensitive to the fact that middle-income families$90,000 - $99,999$100,000 and aboveface significant challenges in paying for a Cornelleducation, often borrowing substantially to meetthat cost.• International Students – Although the universityis need-blind with respect to the admission ofinternational students, it does not assist all suchstudents in meeting the full cost of attendance.(See page 18.) As international students are notgenerally eligible for federal or state financial-aidprograms any aid that they do receive, over andabove that which they bring from their homecountries, must come from Cornell’s resources.The university budgets about $1.4 million annuallyfor international students excluding those fromCanada and Mexico. In 2003-04, aid was providedto 41 individuals at an average grant of $31,872per aided student. It has been estimated that thecost of extending Cornell’s current financial aidpolicy to the full international student populationwould exceed $10 million annually.BY DESIGN, BY DESIRECornell University was founded on the premise thatstudents from all backgrounds and situations shouldhave access to a rich and varied educational experience.The mode by which that access is provided haschanged over the decades, modified to react to governmentalpolicy changes and enhanced to remain sensitiveto the gradual transformation of American cultureand society. From its beginning, Cornell has been in“cooperative competition” with its peers, as the highereducation community redefined and enhanced admissionsand financial-aid approaches. Future changeswill come as the university addresses the access challengesdiscussed above, employing recruiting andadmissions strategies and awarding financial aid toshape the undergraduate student body. Ensuring theability of any student to gain access to Cornell requiresactive enrollment management, effective recruitmentand admissions strategies, and sufficient financial-aidresources. As these processes evolve and are refined,the ideal of any student remains a core institutionalvalue, by audacious design in 1868 and by continueddesire in 2005, as the only right and fair course.20
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Page 16 and 17: Profile of the Class of 2008 - Firs
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Page 22: BIBLIOGRAPHY568 Presidents’ Group

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