Author: The Occidental Weekly Editorial Board
In 2009, Occidental instituted a financial aid policy that lowers the funding for students on need-based financial aid should they decide to move off-campus. In a letter announcing the change, the college said the policy was implemented “given our commitment to a residential campus and the recession’s impact on Occidental’s budget.”
Budgetary issues are hard to solve. However, solving them in a manner which endangers the college’s commitment to equal opportunity and social justice for all students is unacceptable. Through implementation of this policy, the administration is choosing to alleviate its budget woes on the backs of students who can only attend Occidental with its financial assistance.
The college justifies its policy by assuming that when students move off campus, their cost of attendance goes down. Since that cost figures into the financial aid formula, the college strips students of financial aid equal to their savings.
Each year, the college calculates one number as the estimated savings for students living off-campus and deducts that amount from their financial aid packages. If that cost savings figure is overestimated by even one cent, the college has an outrageously discriminatory policy whereby students on need-based financial aid have an unequal opportunity to live off campus because doing so would place a greater financial burden on them.
Because the college uses “national averages” and the California Student Aid Commission’s Student Expenses and Resources Survey to determine its deduction instead of surveying Occidental students, the number may be an overestimate.
Given the fact that Occidental’s estimate of off-campus student savings has somehow gone from $2,404 when the policy was introduced in 2009 to $3,251 this year, who knows how many upperclassmen students on need-based financial aid have felt coerced into participating in Occidental’s “residential campus” experience under threat of manipulation of their financial aid packages?
Even if the numbers were perfect, this policy would still be far from fair. It is unfair that upperclassmen students who have enough money to cover their expenses at college get to reap the savings of moving off campus while those on need-based financial aid, who have a real need to save money, get all of their savings siphoned off to fix the college’s budget woes.
The message students on need-based financial aid are receiving is quite clear: you are different from students who pay full tuition to attend this institution.
Occidental’s manipulation of financial aid is not unprecedented; other colleges employ similar strategies.
One thing that is unprecedented however, is Occidental’s supposed commitment to diversity and need-based financial aid funding. That cannot be questioned. Such a commitment carries with it an expectation of equity that is, rightly, very high.
The classist implications of this financial aid policy stand in direct opposition to Occidental’s core values, and thus the policy must be abandoned.
This editorial represents the collective opinion of the Occidental Weekly Editorial Board. Each week, the Editorial Board will publish its viewpoint on a matter relevant to the Occidental community.
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