Aid parade

Because elite academic institutions shouldn't cater just to the financial elite, Duke's student-aid initiative is welcome

Median household income in the United States is a little over $48,000 a year. That's about what annual tuition, room and board and other expenses total these days at the most expensive private colleges and universities.

A year's earnings, a year's college costs. For many families, outright unaffordable. And costs at these places generally have risen much faster than inflation, as schools compete to hire top scholars, as administrative salaries have ballooned and as more money is plowed into campus amenities of all kinds.

True, private institutions and more-affordable public schools provide grants, loans and work-study jobs that ease the cost burden for many students. And yes, aid has been increasing along with tuition. Families' understandable desire to avoid heavy debt, however, deters many from considering campuses in the top price range. More and more of those campuses have come to resemble upper-income suburbs.

That's a shame. Being able to attend a top-flight school, public or private, can be the chance of a lifetime. And it's in the nation's interest that all parts of its higher education network be accessible to academically qualified students, without regard to their families' financial standing.

So it's good to see highly regarded Duke University, where tuition and mandatory housing expenses run about $45,000 a year, easing the way for families of ordinary means.

Under Duke's new policy, to take effect next fall, students with family incomes below $40,000 will be able to graduate debt-free, because their loans will be replaced by grants. Parents who make less than $60,000 won't be required to contribute to their child's educational expenses. Loans will be reduced in the aid mix for students with family income up to $100,000. And students from families with incomes above $100,000 won't be expected to take out more than $5,000 in loans per year.

Other private schools with big endowments -- Duke ranks 16th, at $4.5. billion -- have moved in the same direction. As did UNC-Chapel Hill, the pioneer among public universities in eliminating loans for low-income students in favor of grants and work-study earnings (N.C. State has followed suit). Harvard boasts that its current freshman class has 30 percent more students from lower- and middle-income backgrounds than did the entering class of 2004.

In offering more generous aid, the wealthiest schools are responding to two sources of pressure. One is their own alumni, urged each year to donate more to alma mater even as endowment earnings soar (Harvard's $35 billion fund earned 23 percent on its investments last year). The other source is Congress, where politicians are beginning to wonder why multibillion-dollar university endowments get away with spending so little of their principal (about 4.6 percent a year, on average).

The schools' answers -- that a lower spending level is prudent for the long haul, and that donors often specify how their gifts are to be used -- are reasonable but insufficient. The accent on campus in recent years has been on big spending, with students' families paying much of the freight. Dedicated student aid funds -- Duke has a new one -- and revised policies can shift the equation toward affordability for all.

It's a question of priorities. Duke is getting the answer right. In opening their doors more widely to students from modest backgrounds, Duke and its counterparts help to spread opportunity more widely in American society -- a role they should be eager to fulfill.