Why George Washington U. is Doing Low-Income Students a Favor

Over the last two weeks, George Washington University has been all over the news for lying to its students about its admissions policies. For years, GW has said that it is “need blind” when in fact it isn’t. Every year the university chooses not to admit a certain percentage of students not because of grades or test scores or what admissions officers see as being a “good fit,” rather they don’t admit these students simply because their families are low-income.

Most of the news coverage has been critical of the school for doing financially needy students a disservice. But, in fact, the opposite is true. GW is actually doing these individuals a tremendous favor since the school does such a lousy job supporting the small share of low-income students that it does enroll.

GW does not come close to meeting the full financial need of the low-income students it admits. Instead, it leaves these students with substantial funding gaps – forcing them to take on hefty debt loads. In 2011-12, GW students from families making $30,000 or less faced a daunting average net price – the amount students pay after all grant aid has been exhausted – of nearly $21,000 per year. That means low-income families have to pony up the equivalent of 70% or more of their annual income for their children to attend GW.

Now it’s true that GW has a relatively small endowment for its size. But this isn’t just a question of money. It’s also one of priorities. The university is a very active participant in the “merit-aid” wars. According to data the school provided the College Board, 19 percent of freshmen had no financial need yet received “merit” scholarships from the university in 2011-12, with an average award of over $17,000. Meanwhile, only 12 percent of GW freshmen received Pell Grants, which go to the most financially needy students.

GW is clearly more interested in recruiting, enrolling, and funding wealthy students than financially needy ones. For that reason, the low income students that GW passes over should know that they dodged a bullet."