Economic diversity tops College priorities

Author: Denizhan Duran

Minorities make up 24 percent of the Class of 2011, according to the Dean of Admissions Bob Clagett, up from 20 percent for the whole student body as a result of the effort to make Middlebury more racially and socio-economically diverse. This is similar to patterns in universities such as Harvard and Yale, which have recently revised their financial aid programs to make attending the schools more affordable for lower income students.

According to Clagett, the College's admissions process seeks to increase socio-economic diversity by disregarding applicants' financial background, instead focusing on each prospective student's academic and personal strengths.

"All background factors regarding a student's financial background are taken into consideration after admission," said Clagett. "Once admitted, the Student Financial Services office treats everyone equally in the determination of their need."

The new statistics reflect the increase in the College's diversity, both socioeconomic and ethnic.

"Forty-eight percent of students in the Class of 2011 are receiving grant-assistance from Middlebury, and 24 percent of the class is U.S. citizens of color," Clagett added. "To increase socio-economic and racial diversity of the College are among the most important goals of the Strategic Plan," he said, emphasizing that this trend was to continue. As of this year, 19-20 percent of the students in the College are students of color.

Whereas Clagett works on ways to attract students from different racial and socio-economic groups to the College, Shirley Ramirez, vice president for Institutional Planning and Diversity, works on moving beyond this - not just diversifying the student body, but rather trying to enrich everyone's experience at the College. All members of the College benefit from a more diverse student body, Ramirez said. She also oversees some of the programs Middlebury is involved with in order to increase diversity.

"We are trying to reach many new community-based organizations in both rural and urban places," she said, "and the partnerships we have formed are being deepened and enhanced to connect students to Middlebury."

Such a communication method is gradually having an effect on the kind of applicants who are in Middlebury's pool, with the College receiving applications that it would not have gotten before. In terms of increasing socio-economic diversity as well as racial diversity, the Board of Trustees is especially focused on increasing financial aid for students. The two goals go hand in hand.

"The class background of applicants needs to be deeply valued," added Ramirez.

The biggest program that Middlebury is involved with is the Posse Foundation. Posse is an organization that exists to help "urban diverse leaders." This year, the foundation has given scholarships to 560 people across the country. There are 29 liberal arts colleges that are members of the foundation, and each of them has 40 Posse scholars, 10 in each class. Middlebury has been a member of this program for the last 10 years. Sabrina Bektesevic '11, a Posse scholar from Queens, N.Y., said that Posse not only helps them financially, but prepares them mentally for college, in a way, "training" them for it. This way, students from diverse backgrounds are able to form their "Posses" before they go to college. She has attended many different writing workshops and discussions on diversity with Posse.

"I was raised in a community which consists mostly of former Yugoslavians," said Bektesevic in an interview. "Our generation of teenagers ends up in community colleges or marries at a young age … and the ones that don't do either just work." Even if the student graduates, his Posse remains with him, as it also helps them during the job application process. Posse is a merit-based, not need-based program, focusing not on the economic situation of the candidates but their leadership and ethnic background.

Middlebury's effort in increasing diversity is the part of the solution to a nationwide problem. In an article published in The New York Times last Wednesday, Erik Eckholm pointed out the stagnation in economic mobility, or the opportunity for children "of poor or middle class to climb up the income ladder." This has not changed in the past three decades, thus hindering the chance of someone from a disadvantaged background to succeed.

The importance of taking socio-economic background into consideration in the admissions process and thus increasing economic mobility "has been an important one for many years, but it has been receiving a great deal of attention in the past three to five years," said Clagett. He underlined the importance of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which brought the issue of socio-economic diversity to the attention of colleges and universities nationwide. It introduced need-based federal aid like Pell Grants to people from lower income groups.

Big universities like Harvard and Yale are also revising their financial aid policies. If families of students accepted to Harvard are earning less than $60,000, then they will not be asked to contribute to the student's comprehensive fee. Yale is also following this policy, and they have also decided to reduce the cost for families making under $200,000 a year. All of these are parts of efforts to make college education more accessible and to make student bodies more socio-economically diverse, and Middlebury is a part of this wave as well by reducing the loan portion of the financial aid package and replacing it with grants.

Middlebury is still progressing in terms of promoting racial and socio-economic diversity. One of Middlebury's challenges, Ramirez states, comes from "our rural location. It just means that we have to be more aggressive, more innovative and more creative in terms of attracting students from all backgrounds."