University seeks to 'optimize' financial aid awards

By Nicole LaPrade

Cuts in Santa Clara's financial aid budget and the use of a controversial new model for allocating financial awards have led some students to worry that applicants who need financial aid the most may not be receiving it.

According to Vice Provost of Enrollment Management Charles Nolan the Board of Trustees reduced the financial aid budget by $1 million this year, "because it was impacting faculty and staff salary and benefits, and also diverting money away from applying it to the overall undergraduate experience here."

To help offset this reduction, for the second year in a row the university has implemented the "Maguire" model for giving out financial aid awards. According to the Maguire and Associates Web site, the Maguire model helps universities "increase the size and academic quality of their entering classes, apply their institutional grant aid and scholarship dollars strategically, and increase net total revenue."

"Maguire produces a model that optimizes your financial aid," said Assistant Vice Provost of Enrollment Management Richard Toomey.

According to Toomey, using the model is meant to "do a reasonable allocation" of the "limited resources that the institution has" to students identified as most likely to enroll.

However, some student groups worry that using this model could lead to a decline in economic and ethnic diversity on campus.

"It is our opinion that the grant money to this year's accepted freshmen was determined based upon factors that fail to accurately take into account the economic and social hardships faced by the Latino community," students from La Communidad Latina, a coalition of Latino student groups on campus, wrote in a recent letter to President Paul Locatelli, S.J.

They cited that the attendance at this year's Noche Latina event, an annual event for accepted incoming freshmen Latino students was a record low for the past ten years, with only 30 of the 550 admitted Latino students in attendance.

"La Communidad Latina fears that SCU's aid policy will not only reduce the number of Latino students on campus, but the policy will also harm the university's reputation in the valley and, potentially discourage Latino students from applying to SCU in the future," the letter continued.

Representatives of La Communidad Latina hope to meet with Locatelli in the coming weeks to discuss their concerns.

"As you have mentioned in your presentations, diversity enhances class discussions and plays an important role in preparing our graduates for the world outside of the security of our campus. We, La Communidad Latina, would be extremely disappointed to see SCU become a home only to the wealthy and elite population groups," the letter said.

Individual members of La Communidad Latina declined to comment for this story.

The Maguire model, Nolan said, is a "sophisticated statistical software" that is used to prevent "over awarding and under awarding" of institutional funds that is used by numerous other schools throughout the country, including other Jesuit universities such as Boston College and Loyola Marymount University.

"The key to any financial aid operation is you want to try and reach that balance point, where you're offering enough financial aid so that it's possible for the student to enroll, but not over-awarding financial aid," Toomey said.

Nolan said that although the focus of the "limited financial aid dollars" this year was on "attracting more engineers, more Latino and more African American students," he is unsure what effects having close to a million dollars less in the financial aid budget will have on the incoming class.

According to Nolan, in the last three years, the freshmen applicant pool has grown by 52 percent and has also become more competitive.

Nolan noted the concerns raised by students over the new procedures are valid, especially in light of the limited budget this year. But he said that it is premature to know what the demographics of the incoming class will be.

"We're probably not going to be in a position any longer where Santa Clara can put to every single student the very best financial aid package out on the street. We can't afford to do that. We have to live within our means, but we have to be competitive by the same token," Toomey said.

* Contact Nicole LaPrade at (408) 554-4546 or at nlaprade@scu.edu.