Elis stage sit-in for aid reform

A group of Yale University students staged an eight-hour sit-in at Yale's admissions office Thursday to call for reforms to the university's financial aid policy that would make it comparable to those offered at Princeton and Harvard.

The doors of the admissions office were locked and prospective students were waved past the building, according to protestors.

At 6:30 p.m., the 15 students were issued citations and fined for trespassing.

"We need to get reform that looks more like [Princeton's] or Harvard's, because it's affecting our admissions," said Julie Gonzales '05 of the Yale Undergraduate Organization Committee (UOC), a group pushing for financial aid reform.

Outside, hundreds of students rallied with loudspeakers and drums, protest organizers said.

The sit-in came two days after Yale President Richard Levin announced plans to make serious changes to the financial aid policy. The students said they hoped to meet with Levin to negotiate financial aid reform.

Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said Levin does not plan to respond directly to the sit-in, but will issue an announcement regarding reform next week.

"Among the 2,200 undergraduates at Yale who are on financial aid, the handful of them that are at the admissions office — their position is that they'd rather not have to wait a couple of weeks," Conroy said.

Commitment to change

Support nonprofit student journalism. Donate to the ‘Prince’. Donate now »

Speaking from inside the admissions office, UOC member Josh Eidelson '06 said that the groups' major demands were "an elimination of the family contribution for low-income families — much like the change that Harvard made last year — and a cut in half of the required annual student contribution."

Harvard decided last year to provide full aid to students with a family income under $40,000, and Princeton revised its policy four years ago to replace student loans with grants.

Gonzales and Eidelson said the UOC has been demanding reform since October, noting Tuesday's forum as a source of their dissatisfaction.

"Many of us came out of that forum disappointed and also personally insulted," Eidelson said. "He questioned whether students were telling the truth."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

At the forum, Eidelson said Levin described students that work up to 20 hours a week as "outliers or extreme cases."

Since October, the UOC has surveyed hundreds of students and compiled more than 1,000 names on a petition demanding financial aid reform, Gonzales said. The UOC had expected more of a commitment to reform from Levin than he offered, she said.

"He basically told us, if you had to choose between parent contribution and student contribution, what would it be?" Gonzales said. "You can't think about financial aid as being one or the other, because for too many students on campus, it's both."

According to Gonzales, Levin also said at the forum that the average student works only six hours a week, but students often work many more.

"I know that most of my friends work at least 10 hours a week," Gonzales said. "I myself in the past have worked up to 16 hours a week. It's not something that you can gauge by a statistic."

Apples and oranges?

The UOC canvassed Yale's campus with fliers comparing financial aid statistics for Yale with those of Harvard and Princeton. The fliers said that Yale students spend more hours working per week and graduate with larger debt — and the school has subsequently received fewer applications for the Class of 2009.

Harvard and Princeton saw increases in applications by more than 15 percent last year, while Yale saw a slight decline.

But Conroy said many of the statistics are inaccurate because they compare "apples with oranges."

Using the numbers that students published regarding average debt upon graduation as an example, he said that the average Yale debt appears larger because it represents only students on financial aid, not the entire student body.

According to Conroy, when Levin makes his announcement next week, he will likely reform the amount required in either parent or student contributions because they are the major components of college costs.

"If you decrease either of those two things, the grant's going to go up," Conroy said. "[Levin] will announce it when he's finalized his decisions."

But Eidelson said Yale needs to alleviate both parent and student costs to attract a more diverse group of students.

Gonzales added, "The University is really committed to academic excellence and you can't have academic excellence if the best and brightest are going elsewhere."

The Yale University Police Department declined to comment, and the Admissions Office could not be reached Thursday afternoon.