During my senior year of high school, I visited GW for an Admitted Student Day. But I couldn’t get too excited.
I had yet to hear about my financial aid package, and without significant help, I knew I would have to go somewhere else.
I was fortunate. It worked out for me.
But many others are not as lucky. This semester, Tori Guy, a former student, transferred after her father lost his job and GW denied her further aid. She said she appreciated the help she received from the University and understood that it could not lend her more support – after all, she recognized “a college is a business.”
It’s ironic that a student can feel as if the University, an institution that prides itself on helping to shape and educate young people, operates more like a financial institution. In addition to offering generous financial aid packages – about 64 percent of students receive some sort of aid – the University can do more to demonstrate that it prioritizes students over profit.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone say GW feels like a business. Of course, the school must remain financially stable somehow, but students should never feel like it is trying to nickel and dime them.
Last week, The Hatchet published a blog about MBA students who are disputing $1,000 increases to their tuition bills. These types of stories make it seem like the University is apathetic toward students’ needs.
Students should be informed of tuition hikes – no matter how big or small – well in advance. For many, an extra $1,000 charge could mean having to find another job or apply for further loans to help foot the bill.
GW raised tuition by 3.7 percent this year after last year's 2.9-percent increase. If tuition increases are necessary to help fund new programs, the University should take an extra step to justify them to students.
Benjamin Krimmel, a junior majoring in international affairs, is a Hatchet columnist.
But GW… is a business. I see where you’re coming from, but it’s kind of idealistic. GW needs to make money, or else student orgs, departments, and programs will (continue to) get the shaft. it would be 10x worse without a tuition increase and other measures to make money. I don’t like it, but that’s just the way it is. Tori was smart for understanding the lack of funds. I hate it, too, as someone who could use more, but I get that there’s a reason behind it.
news flash, every university is a business.
also fixed tuition? what is more student centric than saying, “here’s is your tuition and it will remain at this for the next 5 years no matter what” especially when the avg increase in tuition for a private institution last year was 4.3%
A university is not a business because revenues are not its major — and certainly not its only — goal or measure of success. Universities measure their value mostly by the quality of their teaching and research.
In general, universities are not businesses. Most universities, including this one, are registered as non-profits, and are thereby tax-exempt. This tax-exemption is intended to recognize that the mission of the institution is indeed not to profit, but to provide an important social good, in this case, education. The working assumption is that most of their revenues go to their mission, and that any revenue that mission generates is reinvested in that mission, rather than taken as profit.
Noting the article about an endowment that is over a billion dollars, and that inflation is next to zero, one might ask where the money is going, and not assume that it is going, or will go, to student organizations, faculty, departments, and programs. That other private universities also are raising their tuitions actually raises more questions than it answers.
if university not “need-blind”, grads will never write best
This is a great start, but we need some more investigation into University practices that surround its increasing corporatization. It would be interesting if the Hatchet had more articles regarding GW’s real-estate investments.
Ben,
Excellent article, but I might think about your own marketability with a BA in international affairs. To examine your investment as a business would – ask yourself how long it will take to pay off your loans with the job you will get when you graduate. For your sake, I hope you get a great job.
Unfortunately, GW will continue to operate like a business so long as alumni giving remains significantly lower than peers. However alumni giving will not increase if students feel like they are being nickeled and dimed. Chicken or the egg…?
The fourth paragraph is quite troubling in several respects. Just because a parent loses their job does not necessarily mean there is a change in family financial circumstances provoking a difference in the computed results of the EFC (Expected Family Contribution)to college dervied from the data supplied on the FAFSA form. Most institutions, including GW, use the EFC and other FAFSA-derived data to establish aid levels/packages. For better to worse, it provides a level and transparent source of data on which to make these sorts of decisions.
It’s very hard to generalize from one third-hand report of one former student’s claims of inadequate financial aid, frankly. Since these sorts of decisions are (rightfully) confidential, we will never know the full story as the Unversity can’t disclose its side of it.
Also, Mr. Krimell, again in paragraph four, apparently misuses the term “lend.” I think he meant “give,” as opposed to “lend.” GWU has an emergency student loan fund and other resources to assist students with unexpected and dire financial needs, but I don’t think that’s what he meant to convey.
Whether or not GW is a “for profit” or “not for profit” entitty is, in my view, irrelevant to this discussion. The university has a responsibility to all its stakeholders (students, alumni, faculty, community, etc.) to properly manage its finances and safegurad its assets. It simply cannot do otherwise and still function as an institution.
Students will always gripe about tuition and other costs, and they should. But, I doubt the university is apathetic about or insensitive to their financial needs. And, I truly doubt alumni and others will want to donate to an institution with lax financial policies or profligate spending. That’s happended at other schools, much to their long term detriment.