Scholarships a founding commitment

A year ago, Vassar was forced to take several steps to reduce spending to a sustainable level in light of the economy, which among other things resulted in 13 employees receiving layoff notices. A search for natural efficiencies that controlled costs brought cutbacks in most departments. Despite these rough times, the budget for financial aid rose from $44 million to upwards of $51 million, an unprecedented increase that reflected one of Vassar's core values: a resolute commitment to financial accessibility.

1861 marked not only the establishment of the College but also a set of values that continues to govern Matthew Vassar's "magnificent enterprise" today. Of these values—articulated by the founder in a statement to the Board of Trustees on Feb. 26, 1861—was a hope that his initial endowment to the College would "prove sufficient to warrant the gratuitous admission of a considerable number of indigent students…of decided promise."

"From the beginning, Vassar and his fellow founders saw the need for scholarship aid," wrote Dean Emeritus of the College Colton Johnson in an e-mailed statement. Johnson is also serving as an assistant to College Historian Elizabeth Daniels '41. Of the many specific endowments Vassar left for the College, a special auxiliary fund worth $50,000 was described by then President of the College John Raymond as one to be used "for aiding students who are of superior promise, but unable to defray the full expense of their education."

Presiding over the College's administration as its second president from 1864 to 1878, Raymond was a strong believer in financial accessibility. In a report of the first seven years of the College to the U. S. Commissioner of Education, Raymond explained "the necessity of paying so large an annual fee for board and tuition excludes from the College many of the class who would be most benefited by its advantages, and who would render to the community the amplest returns."

Raymond noted "multitudes who ought to be liberally educated are without such aids," and contended that "unless, therefore, men and women of wealth shall be found who, moved by the spirit of enlightened liberality which has lavished such vast treasures on universities and colleges for the other sex, will come forward to add to its endowments, though Vassar may continue to hold an honorable rank as an emporium of knowledge, it will not fulfill the most beneficent purposes of a school of liberal culture." This plea for support was for the fulfillment of "the highest aim of its founder."

Johnson claims that, comparing Raymond's thoughts to modern standards, "[his] speaking of scholarship aid for a ‘class who would be most benefitted' by a liberal education and who ‘would render to the community the amplest returns,' seems narrowly constrained. These are both rather selective and pragmatic criteria—that is, they involve a demonstrated and prior calling to ‘intellectual pursuits' and also the promise of an ‘ample return to the community,' such as is that made by doctors, writers or teachers."

While Raymond's views on financial aid may be described as narrowly constrained, the views of one of his contemporaries may be one of the very few that overtly opposed gratuitous admissions. "Raymond's learned, self-taught colleague, Maria Mitchell, writing in 1887—after teaching at Vassar for 21 years and a year before her retirement— made an even more astringent—even astonishing—assessment of scholarship aid," said Johnson.

"When I came to Vassar, I regretted that Mr. Vassar did not give full scholarships. By degrees, I learned to think his plan of giving half scholarships better; and to-day I am ready to say ‘Give no scholarships at all'," said Mitchell, who believed that "if a girl has the public school, and wants enough to learn, she will learn. It is hard, but she was born to hardness—she cannot dodge it. Labor is her inheritance."

"This opinion of Mitchell's shocks me every time I read it," wrote Johnson. "Nonetheless, the need for others to ‘come forward' had already been recognized by the time of Raymond's 1873 report," he continued.

Other sources of aid developed from the point of Raymond's administration. The period from 1889 to 1891 saw the mushrooming of several branches of a Vassar Students' Aid Society, which operated from locations across the country including New York City, Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie and New Jersey. Abigail Leach, a member of the Class of 1885 and subsequent instructor of Latin and Greek at Vassar, described the Society's progress and explained that scholarships were offered as loans that bore no interest but were expected to be repaid when the recipient was able to do so. The concept of "need-blind" admissions was introduced to Vassar under its fifth president Henry Noble MacCracken. Before MacCracken set up The Committee on Admission, "rigorous examination of applicants' preparation and scholastic records continued and as the College flourished, this practice was worked against the practice of application by subscription—sometimes at birth—of women either descended from Vassar graduates or from substantial families who could predict that, when the time came, they could pay Vassar's fees," wrote Johnson.

MacCraken's policies, for the first time, admitted "honor students" who "were to be admitted from the deferred group based on academic merit alone." By 1928, "the College was fully committed to competition for all places in the student body, and all students were admitted by the same method," noted Johnson. Towards the end of MacCraken's tenure, the fundraising efforts on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the College managed to add $1 million to the scholarship endowment, which as a result stood at a little above $2 million.

From that point on, according to the sixth president of the College Sarah Gibson Blanding, "through the support of friends and alumnae," this endowment grew. "This year 23 percent of our students received financial assistance. It is my hope that this figure can soon be raised to a point where at least 25 percent receive aid from the College," wrote Blanding in the College's annual report dated 1948.

Blanding's administration surpassed this goal and made Vassar a leader in providing financial aid among its seven peer colleges: A Jan. 11, 1959 article in The New York Times noted that Vassar provided 33 percent of its matriculates with financial aid — a record high at the time.

"Despite not having an endowment or an endowment per student as large as that of many of the institutions to which we are compared, we have a larger percentage of students receiving institutional gift aid than many of our peers," said Director of Financial Aid Michael Fraher. "In the late '80s and early '90s that percentage was 3 percent to 8 percent higher than those institutions," he added.

"The number of students on financial aid has increased greater than the increase in the size of the student body, showing a commitment to providing small class sizes that enhance the quality and substance of the education experience," said Fraher, describing the statistic as it developed from the time he took on the Office of Financial Aid in 1980. "Cost (not adjusted for inflation) has increased six-fold but the College's contribution to the financial aid program has increased 15-fold," he said, emphasizing that this fact "reflects a commitment to making a Vassar College affordable to students from a wide range of family financial backgrounds."

Following from what Blanding reported in 1948, to this day the College still relies on the generosity of the majority of alumnae/i and friends to support what is now called the Annual Fund, which defrays the full cost of a Vassar education for all students by 47 percent.

To continue the commitment that the leaders of this institution have maintained over 150 years, Fraher advises, "No contribution is too small in helping the College to insure that we will be able to help future generations of Vassar students to the extent that we helped them. With the advent of our sesquicentennial celebration and the impending capital campaign there is no better time to show that gratitude."