SLC's financial woes drain students' hopes

by By Dave Brody

Sunday November 13, 2005

"Sarah Lawrence is in jeopardy," warned Sarah Lawrence College President Michele Myers at an annual alumni party. The Financial Aid department is one aspect of the school that has problems, and I fell victim to one of its many bureaucratic downfalls.

Sarah Lawrence is not a loving and caring school. They only care about money and the bottom line. I am one of the extremely fortunate students to have received a near full scholarship; or rather, I was until this past June when I received a crippling bill for $23,000 for the fall semester. The bill, which came by total surprise, informed me that I needed to pay my new balance by July 15 if I wanted to attend the coming semester.

I was a little confused because I thought I would be receiving my scholarship, but apparently I wouldn’t be—the school just never informed me of this little change. The loving and nourishing Sarah Lawrence reduced my scholarship from $32,000 to $6,800 without so much as notifying me via e-mail.

When I called the school, I was told that this change occurred because my father was making a little more money this year and because my sister had graduated college (since, clearly, there are never loans that need to be paid after students graduate college).

Unfortunately, on the same night I found out that Sarah Lawrence cut my scholarship, my father informed me that he had unexpectedly lost his job.

I pleaded with Financial Aid to help me out and told them there was no way I could afford to come back in the fall. I was granted my old scholarship for one semester but informed that after that I would be back on my new plan.

I tried to explain my new economic situation: my father had found a new job that paid less than he was making when I was originally awarded my scholarship: my parents would be moving from New Hampshire to Florida which would create various economic expenses; and my mother would be losing her job in New Hampshire. I told them there was no way I could make ends meet and I would be unable to stay for the spring semester without additional aid.

Financial Aid informed me that I could appeal my scholarship and get re-evaluated. All I needed to do was submit my parents’ W-2’s and the process would only take a few weeks. Unfortunately, I receive my W-2’s at the end of January, so I won’t know until mid-February (if I’m lucky) if I can afford to come back at the beginning of the spring semester. Now, I will not even be able to finish the school year at Sarah Lawrence.

I am not the first person to be steamrolled by the Financial Aid office in an attempt to save money for the school. A current student, who wished to remain anonymous, experienced a similar problem her sophomore year when she returned to school and found that she had an outstanding bill for $10,000. Apparently, the school had cut her financial aid package by $10,000 and had never informed her.

For a school that claims to have a human quality, the least they could do is promptly inform the students who receive cuts in their financial aid. Sarah Lawrence graduate Rebekah Nagy was originally awarded a substantial scholarship, but each year the school cut her package. The school decreased her scholarship so much that she was forced to transfer to a state school for one year to save money before returning to Sarah Lawrence to graduate.

The problem with the financial aid system is that its money is created through the interest from the school’s endowment. Unfortunately, the economy has been sluggish for the past few years, so there has been less money created from the interest.

"The interest rate has been tragically low for the past eight years," said Heather McDonnell, Director of the Financial Aid office.

To make matters worse, this year the school has an unforeseen deficit of $1.8 million and the school is being hit hard by this bill. The school also had to pay an additional $500,000 in financial aid packages because more students returned than predicted and health insurance costs increased by an unexpected $300,000. The Financial Aid office relies on the Admissions office to admit the right amount of students in order to balance the amount of aid that is given away each year. However, the Admissions office has barely been able to balance the amount of admitted students with the amount of assistance available. President Myers stated that the school has no cushion and these unforeseeable expenses take a toll.

When I decided which college to attend, there were many different things I considered—the most important being the amount of financial aid available. If I had known that my scholarship was awarded to me on such shifting sands I would have attended a different school. Now I can’t afford to finish the year and will have to transfer in order to earn my degree. Sarah Lawrence pretended to have a human quality and to be a nourishing and loving community.

In reality, the school is not all that different from the rest: all it cares about is the bottom line.