Financial Aid

 

I want to go to a Yale where no one is forced to choose between participating in extracurriculars and paying their student effort. The amount Yale requires low-income students to pay creates two separate Yale experiences: one for students not on financial aid who can spend more time on classes and extracurriculars, and one for students on financial aid who aren’t able to fully participate in the Yale experience to avoid taking out loans. This is unacceptable: all Yalies should have the same access to the Yale experience, no matter how much money their families make. Yale has the funds to eliminate the Student Income Contribution and Self-Help Contribution and create an equal experience for low-income students. It must do so.

Yale should:

  • Eliminate both the student self-help and student income contribution. The Storlazzi Reforms last semester reduced the annual financial obligation for upperclassmen by $450, and for high-need students by $1,350. These are significant improvements. However, even with these reforms, Yale expects low-income students will work “9-10 hours per week,” as the Admissions Office advertises, in return for their aid. This deprives them of two hours per day of time for extracurricular activities that students who are not on aid can access. This inequity creates two classes of students - those who can fully take advantage of the Yale advertised to them as applicants, and those without such a privilege.  

  • Remove the $20 fee for dropping courses. In lieu of this fee, Yale may require students to fill out a form detailing why they have decided to drop a course, as an alternative barrier to dropping.

  • Remove the $75 summer session application fee. Additionally, many students, according to YCC survey data, choose not to apply to Yale study abroad programs out of a concern that they may decide not to go abroad and would then be unable to reclaim their hefty deposit. Instead, Yale may require students to answer additional application questions about their intentions to study that could serve as an alternative barrier to entry for the program.

  • Equalize the criteria each residential college employs to determine which students are considered low-income, and thus have access to college funds in each residential college for items like winter coats. Currently, different colleges have varying levels of funds that they provide, which means that students, for no other reason than their random assignment to a particular college, may face disparate financial burdens.

  • Implement a sliding scale to determine Self Help and Student Income Contribution obligations. Currently, Yale divides students into two groups: those who are high-need and those who require aid but are not high-need, and requires different financial contributions from the two groups. Yale should replace this rigid distinction with a sliding scale which matches student’s obligations to their family’s income along a continuum.

  • Clarify how students on financial aid can access outside scholarships to cover their Student Income Contribution.

  • Allow students who fund their Student Income Contribution with an outside scholarship to also fund their parental contribution scholarship, as well. Currently, Yale permits students to apply their scholarships to technology expenses only in freshman year, which is an extremely insufficient accommodation.

  • Remove the limit on the number of hours (currently 20) that students can work at a Yale job for pay each week.

  • Increase the number of paid summer fellowships dramatically, and set aside a minimum number of slots specifically for students on financial aid who need the summer income.

What YCC Can Do:

 

  • Continue working with student-activists to advocate to administrators for the full removal of the student income contribution.

  • Conduct a thorough review of fines and fees assessed by the university in addition to tuition, and recommend the elimination of fees that are particularly burdensome for low-income students.

  • Review sources of emergency funding available for low-income students, such as the residential college coat fund and support for students who cannot afford to go home over winter break, and recommend measures to expand and equalize these funds.