NYU should balance both kinds of aid

This year, NYU has increased need-based financial aid and a decreased merit-based scholarships.

The WSN Editorial Board has mixed views about this change. Increased need-based aid will offer poorer students progressive and charitable opportunities. Students from low-income families who previously may not have been able to attend NYU because of the daunting tuition may now have a better chance. Offering need-based aid rather than merit-based may also give the university a small amount of good publicity.

However, we also find parts of this change discouraging. We think decreasing merit-based scholarships abandons the middle-class families who don't quite qualify for enough need-based aid to attend NYU, but who depend on merit-based scholarships to afford the tuition bill. We urge the university to find a way to increase merit-based aid for those struggling between the wealthier families who can easily afford tuition and the low-income families who receive the most need-based aid of all.

We also think increasing need-based aid may lead to fissures in the student population — essentially, only the poorest and the richest students will be able to attend the university. The lowest-income families receive the greatest financial aid packages. So if merit-based aid (which would normally go to a middle-class student who earned it) now goes to a low-income student based solely on need, the scale is tipped in favor of the lower-income student.

We acknowledge that there is no perfect system that can please everyone. But we would like the university to try to find a greater medium. Merit-based scholarships reward students who work hard, and without them, a poor, lazy student may end up with twice as much aid as a middle-class honors student. If this trend continues, it may lead to the university losing valuable and well-qualified middle-class students — students who are just as capable as the rest of the student populace — who choose to universities with better financial aid.

We have written much about the university's financial aid problems, but this issue deserves closer scrutiny. It is noble that NYU is trying to help out lower-income families, but coming from a lower-income family doesn't necessarily make someone more qualified. It is sometimes thought that higher education is moving toward phasing out the middle class, and, even if unintentionally, this may be a step for NYU in that direction.

E-mail the editorial board at editboard@nyunews.com.