The University agreed in December to join the Say Yes Higher Education Compact, an initiative that offers to provide up to 100 percent of college tuition costs to eligible low-income high school students.
The compact ensures that students with a family income at or below $75,000 living in the greater Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y., areas are eligible for the program’s benefits at participating universities, according to the Say Yes website.
Say Yes to Education — a national nonprofit group — began the program in 2008 with high schools in the Syracuse area and has since expanded to include high schools in Buffalo.
The University signed the compact at the same time as 10 other institutions, including Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Williams College. Brown and Yale were the last two Ivy League universities to sign the compact — the other six institutions had done so by September.
“Say Yes to Education is really grateful to have Brown University as a partner and to have the University as an option for our students,” said Jacques Steinberg, the group’s senior vice president for higher education and communications.
Conversations between Say Yes and the University began last fall and were straightforward from the outset, Steinberg said. “I found the University nothing but receptive.”
Partnering with Say Yes was a natural choice for the University, said James Tilton, dean of financial aid. The program “broadens awareness and informs students earlier of the possibilities of where they can attend,” Tilton said. “Our programs fit very well for the goals of Say Yes.”
Currently, the University expects no financial contribution from students with family incomes below $60,000. Say Yes expands the number of applicants who will view Brown as a viable financial choice, Tilton said.
Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73 “worked directly with the Say Yes organization in making the decision” to join the compact, Tilton wrote in an email to The Herald. Miller could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Since Steinberg joined Say Yes in February 2013, more than 25 higher education institutions have joined the compact, he said. The program has expanded from nearly 40 participating colleges and universities last spring to more than 60 now, according to the group’s website.
Say Yes plans to expand the number of institutions involved in the compact and eventually bring the program’s benefits to high schools in cities beyond Buffalo and Syracuse, Steinberg said.
“Low-income students tend to go to less competitive colleges (and) colleges closer to home,” said Lucie Lapovsky, principal for Lapovsky Consulting and former president of Mercy College, a multi-campus institution in New York. “Programs like (Say Yes) will encourage a greater chance of these students going to college, and will encourage them to go to schools at their ability level.”
About 56 percent of students whose family income is $50,000 or below attend college straight out of high school, said Lapovsky, who has studied higher education financing issues. The number is about 82 percent for students who have a family income of $100,000 or above, she added.
“I think it is really important to ask what more we can be doing to expand and strengthen” the University’s financial aid policies, said Alex Mechanick ’15, president of Brown for Financial Aid. “Obviously we are in the position to meet the qualifications for being a part of this program. The question is, are we doing as much as we can be doing?”
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