Oberlin's Money, Mouth at Odds

In the middle of an Insidehighered.com piece on Oberlin College's recent effort to integrate the word "fearless" into their latest marketing campaign, we find this:

"The timing of this marketing effort coincides with a financial concern that is specifically mentioned in the strategic plan, which calls for an enrollment reduction of 163 undergraduate students by 2010 in order to facilitate “modest but essential increases in net tuition revenue per student.” By recruiting more students from high-income families, Oberlin would thus have more tuition dollars coming in and less financial aid going out."

As is generally the case, these policies are wrapped up in financial aid-speak, so let's be clear about what this means: Over the next four years, Oberlin is planning on not admitting 163 smart, well-qualified students from lower-income financial backgrounds, because the university doesn't want to give them the financial aid they need to afford Oberlin prices. This kind of policy is increasingly typical in higher education.

A lot of higher education institutions are under financial strain these days, and there's little doubt that the challenge is particularly acute at small, private liberal arts colleges. Personally, I've always liked Oberlin, I spent a fun weekend there while I was in grad school and the older I get the more I value the rich, quirky cultural and intellectual environments created in small college towns. Oberlin was the first college in the nation to admit women and it was deeply involved in the abolition movement and civil rights movements. It gave the world Fredo Corleone, Ed Helms , and Liz Phair (or at least fierce mid-90s Liz Phair. I don't blame them for this). Not bad for 170 year's work.

But at an institution so famously liberal that things like this and this seem perfectly plausible, it's remarkable that these anti-egalitarian student aid policies are put in place. I'd bet dollars to donuts that on any given day during the Oberlin academic year, a significant number of people on campus are writing, teaching, discussing, or protesting about the grave injustices foisted upon the economically oppressed around the world. It's easy to believe in distributive justice when someone else's dollars are at stake; a lot harder when the necessary sacrifices are close to home.