The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/financial-aid/page/5/)
Provost Michael Kotlikoff discussed changes to international student financial aid and the Student Assembly passed a referendum that would allow students to take American Sign Language for their college language requirement at their weekly meeting Thursday.
Cornell is considering need-aware applications for transfer students, admitting more international students who do not need financial aid and graduating students with more debt, according to more than 30 pages of internal documents obtained by The Sun.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a new tuition plan to supplement the aid for students attending two and four-year public universities in New York.
In his most recent email, Rawlings reaffirmed that once admitted, these students will be eligible for need-based financial aid for the duration of their time at Cornell.
Both endowed and contract non-resident tuition will rise 3.75 percent to $50,712 in the coming months, according to provost Michael Kotlikoff.
Amid another tuition hike, Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced Thursday that Cornell would no longer be need-blind when considering the admission of international applicants due to insufficient funding for financial aid. Many students immediately expressed concern that this policy change would decrease the economic diversity of the international student population, with some thinking the new policy favors high-income and wealthier students. Judgement on whether this admissions policy change will affect the diversity of the school needs to be withheld until the administration concretely lays out how they anticipate reappropriating the presumed monetary gain or decrease in debt from the switch to a need-aware policy. Whether this change will negatively affect Cornell, which has a significantly smaller endowment compared to the peer institutions in which we hope to remain competitive with, depends greatly on whether non-monetary intentions exist and what exactly they are with this sort of change in admissions policy. Need-blindness is a great principle in theory because it says a school solely considers the quality of a student during admissions.
Cornell students will see a nearly four-percent rise in tuition next academic year and admissions for international students will soon no longer be need-blind, according to Provost Michael Kotlikoff. International applicants will be admitted on a need-aware basis beginning fall 2017 due to insufficient funding for financial aid, according to Kotlikoff, who explained these changes at a forum hosted by the Student Assembly Thursday. Many students expressed concern that this change will cause the University to favor wealthier international students who are not dependent on aid. “Student opinion has been disregarded,” said Shivang Tayal ’16, international liaison at large to the S.A. “The new policy does favor high-income, rich students over [the most deserving] students. These standards are not [imposed] for domestic students, so why are they for international students?”
Kotlikoff also announced that both endowed and contract non-resident tuition would rise 3.75 percent in the 2016-17 school year, while campus housing and dining costs both increase by two percent.
President Elizabeth Garrett and Ryan Lombardi, vice president of student and campus life, held a question and answer forum during Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting that allowed students to bring up issues that included diversity, financial aid and sexual assault on campus. “We intend to work with you to continue to strive to provide excellent education in the classroom, outside the classroom, in our community and throughout the world,” Garrett said. She added that in order for her and Lombardi to effectively step into their new roles at the University, they know they must listen to student voices and perspectives. Samari Gilbert ’17, co-president of Black Students United, started the question portion of the forum by asking Garrett how she would take the concerns of students of color more seriously. Garrett responded by pointing out Cornell’s history of egalitarian culture and added that there are many different types of diversity.