Applications Drop 20% at Williams as Economy Sours (Update1)
By Janet Frankston Lorin
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Applications dropped at seven of the top eight liberal-arts colleges in the U.S., led by a 20 percent plunge at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Families facing higher taxes and declines in investments and home values are balking at the costs of small private schools, which can reach $50,000 a year. While attending an Ivy League school, such as Harvard University in Cambridge, may be worth the cost for families that don’t qualify for financial aid, the next level of elite schools may not carry the same value in a sour economy, educators and parents said in interviews today and last week.
Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, ranked third-best among liberal-arts institutions by U.S. News and World Report, drew 10 percent fewer applicants than last year, and there was a 12 percent drop at fifth-ranked Middlebury College in Vermont. Amherst College in Massachusetts said applications fell 1 percent for the next school year. Amherst and Williams are tied for first in the ratings.
“I told my kids that below a certain level of private college, it’s more reasonable to go to a public school,” said Linda Moses, a New York banker whose son will attend the University of Chicago in Illinois after being accepted early. “I am willing to stretch for Chicago, but for not every school.”
The decline in applications may mean students have a better chance gaining admission to top liberal-arts schools, said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, and a former admissions officer at Stanford University in California. Williams, for one, turned down the majority of applicants last year, admitting only 17 percent.
Increase at Wellesley
A low acceptance rate is one factor used by U.S. News & World Report in determining top schools.
Applications also fell at Carleton College in Minnesota, Bowdoin College in Maine, and Pomona College in California. Only Wellesley College in Massachusetts reported an increase among the top eight liberal arts schools ranked by U.S. News. Wellesley said applications rose 2 percent, to about 4,200.
Applications at all eight Ivy League universities in the Northeast U.S. increased. Harvard College received about 29,000, a 5.6 percent gain from a year earlier, while Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, got 26,000, 14 percent more. The increase at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was just four applicants.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Stanford University in California and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, also attracted more applicants.
Feeling Squeezed
Families that once could afford private college are feeling squeezed during the economic meltdown, as many don’t qualify for financial-aid packages. While Yale provides aid for families earning as much as $200,000 a year, more than three times the median income in the U.S., the limit for aid eligibility is often lower at other schools.
The small liberal-arts colleges, like the larger Ivy League institutions, have enhanced financial aid in recent years. Williams eliminated loans in November 2007, instead giving students more grants.
Williams received 6,024 applications. Last year, applications at the school increased 17 percent to a record 7,552.
“Certainly the economy has to have an effect,” said Richard Nesbitt, director of admissions at Williams. “Some of these kids might have applied to 14 schools last year. Instead of 14, they’re applying to 10 now and maybe the last four are lower- cost public institutions.”
‘Extraordinary’ Applicants
Perhaps the “bigger-name research universities are being kept on the list” and smaller liberal-arts colleges are being dropped, Nesbitt said. Williams continues to attract “extraordinary” applicants, he said.
“We still have the third-highest number we’ve had in the history of the college,” Nesbitt said. “It’s not like were suffering for lack of quality.”
Middlebury received 6,904 applications this year, down from the record 7,823 last year, said Robert Clagett, the dean of admissions.
Swarthmore got 5,626 applications, down from the record 6,241 last year, said Jim Bock, dean of admission and financial aid.
“This year it might be about the money,” Bock said. “We just don’t know.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Janet Frankston Lorin in New York jlorin@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 9, 2009 15:45 EDT |
