International students apply for financial aid just as U.S. students do. Their packages include loans, work-study requirements and grants, just like their American classmates'. But there is one big difference - foreign students are not admitted need-blind.
The current policy deters international students from applying and creates an imbalanced international community in which many regions remain underrepresented, said Anya Rasulova '08. The only graduate of her Tashkent, Uzbekistan high school to ever attend Brown, Rasulova received financial aid offers from 11 schools - some of which offered better packages than the University.
Harvard, Princeton and Yale are among the few U.S colleges that offer need-blind admission to all students, regardless of their passports. Brown's foreign financial aid capacity placed among the top 20 schools nationally in a recent College Board ranking, said Director of Financial Aid Michael Bartini. Currently, $3 million of the University's total $45 million in aid supports roughly 100 international students - just over a quarter of Brown's foreign population.
However, Director of Foreign Student, Faculty and Staff Services John Eng-Wong questioned whether that statistic included Canadian students whose application for aid differs from that of other international students. "If it's 100 (students on aid), I'd be surprised," Eng-Wong said.
"Should we give more money to international students? Absolutely," Bartini said. Determining the full scope of foreign student support is difficult because some students may receive sponsorship from individuals, companies or government programs in their own country, Bartini said. Foreigners do not qualify for U.S. federal aid, and consequently all money lent, loaned or paid in salary to them comes from Brown - not government - resources.
Existing student packages offered by the University are similar to those of American students, Bartini said. Regardless of changing economic or political situations in their home country, foreign students may not apply for aid after being admitted or enrolling at Brown.
Eng-Wong estimated that at least one foreign student each year leaves the University because of changed financial circumstances. Occasionally these students can continue at Brown thanks to loans from classmates, "but there are other cases where the outcomes are not as happy," Eng-Wong said.
Whether otherwise qualified foreigners are rejected on account of their financial standing is unclear, but the University aims to make its policy as fair as possible. Bartini said that although the international community is probably less economically diverse than the rest of the student population, foreign students do not differ in merit. "Brown admits the best students regardless of their point of origin," he said.
Students are deemed qualified by the Office of Admission and then evaluated by Bartini's office on the basis of their country's cost of living, family income and their currency's exchange rate to the U.S. dollar. The evaluation process "is not a perfect science" because it requires comparison across so many countries, Bartini said.
"If they need money, we either fund them or don't admit them," Bartini said. "It's a difficult problem, and there's no right answer. The right answer is need-blind for all students." Calculating the necessary funds to implement need-blind admission for foreign students depends on the number of applicants and other variable factors, but Bartini estimates it lies between $4 and $7 million.
Rasulova pushed for need-blind foreign admission as an Undergraduate Council of Students representative, but said she soon realized Brown currently lacks the resources to amend the policy.
Bartini said increasing financial aid for all students, including transfers and Resumed Undergraduate Education students, remains a University priority, but foreign students may or may not be the group most in need of aid when funding is allocated.
"The pot is not endless, and hard decisions need to be made every year," Bartini said.
Serena Oppenheim '05, a British citizen, said she hopes her efforts as co-president of the BRIO Scholarship Fund will add to the pot of funding available to foreign students. Founded in 1996, the student organization raises money for scholarships specifically for foreigners.
Several named or endowed scholarships exist for foreign students, Bartini said, but those funds typically contribute to the general resource pool for foreign aid. BRIO Scholarship Fund currently supports one student in each class year, but Oppenheim and the rest of the fund's board aim to increase its capacity with an upcoming fundraising drive.
"We hope that increasing financial aid for internationals will encourage students who might not otherwise apply to Brown," Oppenheim said. "More scholarships should open up the University to greater diversity."
