In its first meeting, the 24th Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council, led by new VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10, passed Council Resolution 24-1. The resolution articulates the Council’s support of a need-blind admissions policy as it anticipates the difficult decisions that may be made by the Board of Trustees later in the month.
Among other points, the document defends Vassar’s need-blind policy based on the expansion of socio-economic diversity that it has brought to campus, the College’s mission statement, the words of Matthew Vassar and the very economic climate that challenges it. The first resolved point reads, “The VSA Council strongly supports Vassar’s continued commitment to need-blind admission, especially during a period of financial uncertainty, so that future students are afforded the same privileges that current students hold.”
As both student leaders and senior officers have expressed strong support throughout the year for continuing the College’s need-blind policy in uncertain financial times, some Council members questioned the relevance and potency of the resolution. “I don’t feel like it resolves something. I think it supports something that already happened,” said Acting President of the Class of 2013 Charlie Nicholson ’12. “The VSA Council has already supported this. I’m not challenging it; I’m just wondering?”
According to Ly, need-blind admissions may, in fact, be “on the chopping block.” “We want to start off setting the right tone,” said Ly. “The Trustees are frankly going to have to evaluate whether or not need-blind is going to be something that’s going to become need-sensitive.”
Ly added that whatever is decided about the policy, it would not affect the incoming class, which would be the second class to benefit from the College’s return to a need-blind policy in 2007. The College returned to the policy after 10 years of being need-aware. At that time, the decision was made based on a favorable economy and a growing endowment, the rising costs of higher education, and the fact that change would only affect about two percent of applicants.
“This is something that the students want, and we’d really like to keep it,” said Vice President for Activities Aaron Grober ’11.
According to Ly, the amount of aid that the incoming freshman class needs will likely influence the trustees’ discussions of need-blind. “I fear that need-blind admissions will be on the chopping block if a large percentage of the incoming class—my guess is somewhere over 57 percent—needs aid. That said, [President Catharine Bond Hill] and several Board members have expressed their strong commitment to protecting need-blind during this period of economic uncertainty,” wrote Ly later in an e-mailed statement. “They recognize that families are more in need of financial support from the College than ever before, and their hope is that the global economic situation will turn around quickly so that the college can afford to continue the need-blind admissions policy.”
The possibility of cutting the need-blind policy was directly linked to decisions regarding faculty cuts by Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ’10, given the large portions of the budget dedicated to both compensation and financial aid. “As these two large areas are starting to be talked about and weighed against one another, it’s very important that students have voice in advocating for the spending priorities that they believe are important. You can be very sure that the faculty are arguing for what they think is important,” said Farkas. “And what they think is important is often that faculty jobs be retained.”
“In many cases, the students obviously support retaining a robust and diverse faculty as well,” Farkas continued. “But I think that it’s very unanimous, as you just saw here, that there’s student support for maintaining the College's need-blind admissions policy, and for high levels of financial aid spending generally,” he said.
Ly added that reviewing the College’s need-blind policy is a reasonable response to the financial crisis by the Trustees and the College. “Realistically, however, the College’s continued commitment to the need-blind policy will face some scrutiny as the College is forced to make additional cuts across the campus—specifically, in scaling back the number of staff, administrative and faculty positions,” wrote Ly. “As you know, faculty compensation and financial aid are the two largest components of the operating budget, so it makes sense that both areas are facing increasing scrutiny during this financial crisis.”
The Council did unanimously pass the resolution after very little discussion or debate. Members of the Executive Board hope that this fact will send a strong message to the trustees and the administration as to the students’ priorities. To make the resolution even stronger, the Executive Board has been trying to solicit signatures from VSA Executive Board members from the past five years, an effort spearheaded by outgoing VSA President Jimmy Kelly ’09. “My hope is that their signatures will prove to the Trustees that protecting need-blind admissions is fully endorsed not only by current Vassar students but also by recent graduates,” wrote Ly.
The document represents the interests of both the outgoing and incoming VSA Councils. “We will be attaching the resolution to our board report for the May meeting with the Trustees, and I'm very excited to shepherd in a new era of the Council by representing these interests to the Board,” wrote Kelly in an e-mailed statement. “Let's hope it's a non-issue (not likely), but in the event that it is, you've got a unified Council and coalition Exec stance.”
As the cuts necessarily get deeper, the decision between financial aid spending and faculty compensation, two of the College’s highest cost areas, will become more complicated. “I do believe protecting need-blind admissions should be a high priority of the College, if only because Vassar can still be a great institution with a leaner faculty, but it cannot afford to lose ground on maintaining a diverse and well-rounded student body,” wrote Ly.
Farkas agreed with Ly, though he also warned that not all faculty cuts would have equal impact on the College. “Personally, I think it depends on the level of faculty jobs that we’re talking about. It depends on the place that those faculty have in the curriculum,” he said. “At this level, at this point, at this date, I think that we should side with need-blind.”
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