We don’t normally find much to praise these days about the practices at elite universities. But give Princeton credit for its announcement this month on financial aid. Under its new formula, “most families earning up to $100,000 a year will pay nothing” to attend Princeton—and even families with incomes above $100,000 will get more aid.
Princeton is worth paying attention to because it has a history here. In 2001 it became the first university to ensure that students would no longer need loans to get a Princeton degree. Given that Princeton’s sticker price is now $83,140 all in—including $59,710 in tuition and $11,400 for housing—that’s a significant commitment.
Richard Vedder, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and an economist specializing in college costs, points out that Princeton can easily afford it given its endowment of $35.8 billion. “Announcements of increased aid to students at the big three Ivies has been a tradition beginning earlier in this century,” he says. “I believe it’s in response to growing criticism of the Ivies as being sort of like medieval academic villages, complete with their lords and rather affluent aristocratic vassals—the students.”