Ensuring Access and Opportunity
T
he college years can change a bright student’s life, giving him or her rich opportunities to develop intellectually, personally, and ethically. High-achieving students want to test their abilities and discover new ones; they want to know the world, meet its people, tackle its problems, create its opportunities, and contribute to the human endeavor. They don’t merely want a degree; they hunger for an education.
At Middlebury, four out of ten undergraduates receive financial aid. Each student’s circumstances are evaluated: Are there other children in college? Are the parents nearing retirement age? These and many other factors could warrant financial aid for a student whose family at first glance might not seem to qualify.
Helping high-achieving young people reach their full potential is too important to be left to family circumstances. One of the world’s premier colleges for the liberal arts and sciences, Middlebury offers students an unparalleled learning community: engaged faculty; extensive academic, international, and servicelearning programs; and committed fellow students. Middlebury is also one of the very few colleges— 3 percent nationwide—committed to educating these students regardless of their ability to pay. Middlebury accepts students need-blind—on the basis of who they are and who they can become, not how much their parents can afford. Need-blind admissions allows the College to welcome to our campus and classrooms top students eager to share their widely ranging life experiences, interests, and viewpoints. Each of these students carries ambitions and dreams, confident that the College can help realize them. Helping high-achieving young people reach their full potential is too important to be left to family circumstances. However, it demands significant resources for financial aid. www.middleburyinitiative.org
This commitment, though expensive, enables the College to draw bright young scholars from every state; from different socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds; and from around the globe. While working closely with exceptional faculty in an internationally oriented environment, they teach each other how to live, work, and thrive together— to live creatively and ethically—in a shared and challenging world. This type of education nourishes the lives of those fortunate enough to receive it, but it also has a wider impact, creating leaders who are fit to direct the institutions, shape the issues, and solve the problems of today and tomorrow. Providing the financial support necessary to bring and keep these students here is one of Middlebury’s top priorities.
The Competitive Nature of Financial Aid
Middlebury faces increasing challenges in competing with peer schools for gifted, diverse students. Only 25 percent of Middlebury scholarships derive from February 2008
endowed scholarship funds. Each year the balance must come from the less secure sources of annual giving and the annual budget. A rapidly growing number of top colleges have expanded their aid packages to trim or eliminate debt for many financial aid students. Few highachieving students will turn down an offer to graduate from a highly ranked college and to enter graduate school or a chosen career without a financial burden. As of 2005–2006, the most recent figures available, the average Middlebury student receiving financial aid could expect to graduate with $20,824 in debt. That figure is higher—sometimes starkly so—than those of all but three of our 21 peer schools: the average student debt at several of these colleges ranges from $13,636 to $10,900. Middlebury is progressing toward lowering student debt; meanwhile, peer schools continue to accelerate their debt relief, several of them eliminating loans entirely for students from lower-income families. The College—and its students, present and future— is counting on those alumni, parents, and friends who are willing to share a student’s dreams. No one can make the case for financial aid more strongly than the students who receive it. Visit www.middleburyinitiative.org to meet just a few of the students for whom financial aid has made all the difference.
www.middleburyinitiative.org
February 2008
Financial Aid at a Glance, 2007–2008
Cost to the College of educating each Middlebury undergraduate . . . . . . . . . . . . . $74,000 Tuition, room and board, and fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $46,910 Percentage by which total cost exceeds tuition and fees, even for students not receiving aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 % Percentage of Middlebury students on some form of financial aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 % Middlebury’s 2007–2008 total financial aid budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33 million
Typical Middlebury Financial Aid Package 2007–2008 Average Self-Help (Work and Loan) n
$4,724
Average Middlebury Grant n
$29,566
Average Family Contribution n
$13,897
www.middleburyinitiative.org
February 2008
World Citizen Carolyn Barnwell ’07 Hometown: Concord, N.H. Major: Environmental Studies: Human Ecology Carolyn Barnwell became environmentally active in sixth grade (classmates called her “Recycling Girl”), but at Middlebury she found how potent her actions could be. Here Carolyn found a whole world to explore. “Coming to Middlebury opened my eyes to global issues,” she says. “I became intrigued by how a concern such as clean water links to human rights and international development. Everyone has the right to clean water.”
“Coming to Middlebury opened my eyes to global issues…” Her professors had an enduring impact on her thinking. “Jon Isham’s Conservation and Environmental Policy course was so amazing,” she says, “because he helped me understand the importance of social capital—people finding reasons why they care about something—in solving environmental problems.” She wanted to understand global issues firsthand, so in 2005–06, supported by a Freeman Award for Study in Asia, Carolyn spent six months in Thailand, where she did senior-thesis research and volunteer www.middleburyinitiative.org
work. She also made “Grains of Change,” a short film about Thai organic rice-growing communities and how they benefit from Fair Trade. Her work won Carolyn one of two awards given nationally from the National Association of Student Anthropologists. The film has been distributed by nonprofits nationwide, showing consumers and food distributors the positive impact of buying Fair Trade products. Carolyn is now traveling on a prestigious Watson Fellowship, recording the impacts of global warming in some of the world’s most vulnerable coastal areas. She feels well prepared, having worked closely with professors and fellow students in an atmosphere that emphasizes collaboration and problem solving. “So many professors have done research abroad—their advice has really helped me form friendly relationships in new countries.” She says of her fellow students, “It’s more cooperative than competitive here and people are open about sharing their experiences.” For Carolyn, an essential source of help was financial aid. “It was wonderful to reflect each year on what I’d done and to thank the woman who funded my scholarship.”
February 2008
Brian with Gloria González Zenteno, associate professor of Spanish
Creating Opportunities for Others Brian Pacheco ’08 grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in a family of Puerto Rican descent. “My parents have always had high expectations,” he says. “We were going to college, no matter what.” A scholarship brought Brian to Middlebury, and he’s lost no time pursuing ways to give back.
Brian Pacheco ’08 Hometown: New York City Major: Spanish
“Kids and film are my passions,” says Brian. “Middlebury has really allowed me to tap into activism for children. One of my most prized memories is when I went to Costa Rica for January Term and taught young kids.” He also spent a summer at Painted Turtle, Paul Newman’s California camp for gravely ill children.
“Middlebury has really allowed me to tap into activism for children.”
“So many who deserve chances don’t get them,” he says. “I’m grateful to the donors who made it possible for me to be here.” Brian’s dad is a carpenter, his mother a social worker. He considers himself “bicultural”—his family spoke English at home and kept many Puerto Rican traditions. He won admission to the highly selective Humanities Preparatory Academy in New York City, where his outstanding record earned the Posse Foundation Scholarship that brought him to Middlebury. Posse Scholarships enable urban students with leadership potential to attend colleges out of their financial reach.
A filmmaker since childhood, Brian uses Middlebury’s media equipment to create documentaries for various campus cultural groups. He was also president of the Alianza Latinoamerican y Caribeña student organization. Brian’s career goal is to teach. “I want to work with kids, with immigrants—with those who don’t have much help,” he says. At Middlebury, he’s experienced the benefit of personalized teaching: “When my first Spanish class got hard for me, I started slacking off. Professor González [Gloria González Zenteno, associate professor of Spanish] e-mailed asking to talk. I thought she’d say ‘This is unacceptable.’ Instead, she said, ‘I have faith in you’ and showed such an interest that I wanted to bring my grades back up, and I did.” www.middleburyinitiative.org
February 2008
Standing Up for Afghanistan Like many bright students, Zohra Safi ’09 wants to attend law school after college. For Zohra, though, legal training is desperately needed to rebuild her country. A native of Kabul, Afghanistan, Zohra has witnessed the destruction of her nation’s civil society, legal protections, and educational prospects, especially for women.
Zohra Safi ’09 Hometown: Kabul, Afghanistan Major: Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies
Zohra came to Middlebury through the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women, a scholarship program. “My time here has given me every opportunity to explore my greatest interests,” she says. “Along with its formal education, Middlebury has a sense of community—and it educates you about different cultures, religions, and people. I am blessed with wonderful friends who are part of my life now.”
“My education will help me to teach Afghans who are tormented by decades of war and destruction.”
Those friends include faculty members like Sujata Moorti, professor of women’s and gender studies. “After each lecture,” says Zohra, “I shared and discussed information I had absorbed with my classmates. When you talk to her, you realize that you are talking to a friend who welcomes your questions and always encourages you to do something in your life.”
Zohra is eager to share the benefits of her Middlebury education with other Afghan women: 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70 percent of Afghan girls have no access to education. Their average life expectancy is only 44. “We are in dire need of educated people,” Zohra says, adding, “My Middlebury education will help me to teach the value of life and knowledge to Afghans who are tormented by decades of war and destruction.” She spent her sophomore summer back home in Kabul, working for the U.S. Department of Justice in its efforts to help rebuild the Afghan judicial system. This real-world experience has inspired her plans for her—and her country’s—future. “My goal is to work for the Afghan government,” Zohra says. “I want to advocate for human rights.” www.middleburyinitiative.org
February 2008