BY BENJAMIN BRADLOW

In print | Published April 17, 2008 — Updated April 28, 2008 01:14

By the time this article is in print, prospective students will be arriving on campus to decide if Swarthmore is where they will spend their time as undergraduate students. The college has one more weapon in its arsenal to make the pitch to these students: what Dean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90 calls a “no-loan” policy. The college, part of a group of highly selective and extraordinarily rich educations institutions, will give all grant money based on its assessment of a given student’s financial need so that, theoretically, no student will need to take out any loans to attend here. I have no doubt that this aids the college in convincing highly competitive students to decide go to Swarthmore. Still, what makes for good headlines may not be the most significant part of using admissions as a way of increasing the opportunity for an elite, liberal arts education like what Swarthmore offers.

Swarthmore is facing not only the problem of competing for students comparing the financial aid policies of similar schools, but also the declining percentages of low-income students attending the school. The average family income for a student attending Swarthmore rose at a disproportionate rate compared to the national household mean from 1999 to 2005. On a similar note, it’s tough to overlook the fact that Swarthmore’s “no-loan” policy comes at the same time as schools like Harvard extend extensive tuition relief packages to students from households in higher and higher income brackets.

The question becomes, then, how can Swarthmore use its admissions and financial aid policies to extend opportunity to the widest range of students possible, particularly along class lines. In a previous column, I mentioned the possibility of opening up more spots in each class of students to transfers from community colleges as a way of widening the pool of potential qualified applicants from low-income households. After talking with Bock and student members of the planning sub-committee on admissions and financial aid, it is clear to me that this proposal is one already under consideration.

According to Bock, the school has, over the course of his seven-year tenure, increased the number of spots open from about two to four students per class to currently eight to twelve students per class. This increase occurred during Bock’s tenure as dean of admissions, as he argued that the school needed a greater “critical mass” of transfer students to make the transfer experience even somewhat equivalent to that of a four-year student. It will take much more than opening up less than three percent of a given class to use the transfer pool as an engine for increasing the economic diversity of the college. Such an increase may require a reorganization of priorities for the school. Some may argue that having too many transfers diminishes the basic four-year experience of a Swarthmore student. I have to wonder how much having ten or fifteen percent of students in a given class as transfers changes things.

As touchy as the issue may be, especially under the presidency of Al Bloom, who already presided over the contested cuts of the football team, slotting for athletics may be an impediment to the goals of social justice driving a more open transfer process coupled with an emphasis on community college recruitment. If we removed some of the slots in each class allotted to athletic teams we would open up more possibilities for using admissions to craft a student body that offers opportunity to a wider range of students.

These kinds of proposals are just some of the ways that we can think about the current planning process as a time to push the ways we conceive about institutional operations like admissions as part of making the college an effective institution in advocating for social change. Next year’s student council, which will be elected in the upcoming days, has the opportunity to be forceful policy advocates in this process. The college will make its pitch to prospective students this weekend who may be wowed by headline-grabbers like the “no-loan” policy. As we plan for the next generation of Swarthmore students, let us reimagine what future crops of prospective students could look like.

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