This is the first in a series of seven articles examining the numerous challenges Cornell - its leadership, administration, staff and students - face over the next 10 years.

It's a statistic that doesn't get much publicity, but Cornell now offers 100 to 200 near "free rides" a year to students who otherwise could not afford an Ivy League education.

These special financial-aid packages of free tuition, room and board with no work-study or loans and less than $1,000 a year in parental contributions represent one of Cornell's efforts to compete with Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other Ivy League schools for high-caliber students from families with adjusted gross incomes of $25,000 or less.

These efforts are starting to pay off in terms of both economic and racial diversity on campus: In the past five years, applications from and admissions of black students, for example, have jumped 80 and 39 percent, respectively; 192 black first-year students entered this fall -- more than any year in the past two decades, says Doris Davis, Cornell's associate provost for admissions and enrollment. Indeed, Cornell is now one of the most socio-economically diverse institutions among leading universities in the United States.

Davis

"These packages are our way of making sure we can recruit high-quality students of color as well as low-income students from farms, from families with no previous college graduates and from high schools that have low numbers of students going to four-year colleges," says Davis.

But are Cornell's efforts enough? Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, for example, provide free tuition and room and board to students of families with higher income levels -- Harvard, for example, gives similar aid to students from families with adjusted gross incomes of $60,000 or less, Yale and Stanford to those of $45,000; Princeton, on the other hand, has eliminated loans in financial aid packages completely.

If Cornell were to offer similar packages, the university would need to spend an additional $10 million a year (in 2004-05 dollars) on financial aid, says Michael Whalen, director of Planning Information and Policy Analysis in Cornell's Division of Planning and Budget, in his 2005 report, "Undergraduate Student Access."

"The schools with whom we compete are smaller and wealthier," says Davis. "Whenever we think about implementing financial aid strategy that others have, we cost it out, and it always costs us more because we're larger. We think we're doing well given what we're able to do and given our resources. We just don't have the resources, the endowments, compared with these other schools."

And besides, Davis adds, despite what the media has reported, none of the Ivies offer completely "free rides."

"These institutions have either eliminated parent contributions or loans. I don't know of a single institution that has done both of these things [in the same income group]," says Davis. "It's unfortunate we haven't gotten some of the same national media press attention, but six years ago, we made a major policy change to offer more of our preferential financial aid packages. We just didn't issue a major press release."

And even though tuition seems to rise almost every year, Davis says that does not interfere with recruiting a strong, diverse class each year.

"Every time tuition goes up, the level of financial aid we can offer increases by the same percentage," says Davis. And she emphasizes that Cornell's escalating costs for students (now $32,981 for tuition and fees; $45,877 total estimated cost for endowed colleges and $44,777 for out-of-state residents in contract units) are in complete alignment with peer institutions.

Barbara Drogo/Office of Publications and Marketing

Notes: Actual counts may be higher since some students don't report their race or ethnicity, and those absent from campus are not included. Fall 2005 excludes 169 special students attending due to hurricanes that hit the Louisiana area. Source: University Registrar, Registration and SIS Reports.

Who subsidizes financial aid?

Nearly 7 percent -- almost $117 million -- of Cornell's Ithaca campus 2006-07 annual operating budget of $1.7 billion is earmarked for undergraduate financial aid. With about 35 percent of the annual budget coming from tuition and fees, that means that the 52 percent of undergraduates who receive no financial aid or loans contribute indirectly to the 48 percent who do. The average financial aid package in 2005-06 was $26,900; the average needs-based scholarship or grant award was $21,000.

However, even students who pay full tuition and other fees without any aid are not actually paying the full cost of their Cornell education, points out Robert Frank, Cornell professor of management and economics. "At elite colleges, such as Cornell, student costs cover only about 30 to 40 percent of the full cost of their education."

Nevertheless, of financial aid, which is all need-based at Cornell, that is distributed to undergraduates, 52 percent comes directly from Cornell's operating budget. The 44 percent that comes from gifts and endowments (supported primarily by alumni) has been helping low-income students for more than 20 years. The remaining 4 percent represents what departments pay to support federal work-study jobs.

About 1,900 (almost 14 percent) undergraduate students also receive Pell grants, the federal program for low-income students. (About 3,100 undergraduates also participate in federal work-study programs.) In fact, of 25 peer institutions, Cornell ranks third in the percentage of students receiving federal Pell grants.

Attracting underrepresented minorities

"Cornell also is unique in the diversity of majors and courses of study that it can offer students from every background," says Michele M. Moody-Adams, vice provost for undergraduate education, pointing out that to recruit underrepresented minority students (black, Hispanic and Native American), "we must find new ways to stress the range of educational opportunities we offer that may not be available at other Ivies."

Some of the efforts in recent years include Cornell's Diversity Hosting Weekend, during which Cornell minority students host visiting high school students, and stepped-up efforts to look for high-caliber underrepresented minority students in places other than high schools. Davis says that Cornell efforts, for example, have been focusing recently on such community-based organizations as churches and community centers where exceptional youths stand out for their leadership skills, as well as junior colleges. Cornell recently received a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation grant to launch programs designed to help high-achieving, low-income community college students transfer to Cornell for bachelor's degrees.

While Harvard and Princeton have eliminated early admissions as favoring wealthier students who do not need to consider financial aid packages, Cornell Provost Carolyn "Biddy" Martin says Cornell has considered doing so for years. However, no decision has yet been made, she says.

Other efforts to attract minority students to Cornell include opportunities for high school students to talk with Cornell students affiliated with Students of Color Admissions and CU IMAGE (Increasing Multicultural Admissions and Gains in Enrollment) via phone, online chats and in person in New York City as well as hosting application workshops in six cities, including New York and Los Angeles, at which students and their parents receive personalized help in filling out the Cornell application.

Cornell has no set goals -- no quotas -- to meet in terms of race, religion and ethnicity, Davis stresses. Rather, her goal is to recruit an academically strong, balanced class.

"Our goals for diversity have not changed -- basically, we're looking to make Cornell a better place to learn. … That's the goal of bringing a diverse community together, not to say you have 9 percent black or 10 percent Hispanic, but so you can say you have an educational community that has been enriched by the fact that you are bringing people together from diverse backgrounds and that the students are both contributing to and learning from this new environment," says Davis.

'Needs-blind' admissions benefit minorities

Cornell was the first major university to recruit minority students aggressively, particularly blacks from inner cities, writes political scientist and author Donald Alexander Downs in his book "Cornell '69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University" (1999). It was during Cornell President James A. Perkins' administration (1963-69) that the number of black undergraduate students jumped to 250 in 1968-69 from eight in 1963.

Last fall, 11 percent (almost 1,500) of the undergraduates were underrepresented minorities, mostly blacks and Hispanics. Nationwide, blacks and Hispanics constitute 31 percent of the college-age population.

In 1975, the university reaffirmed its commitment to educational opportunities for minority students, and the following year, pledged to not only seek out minority students with "the highest potential for success" but also to "provide financial assistance to those students who, because of limited financial resources, could not otherwise accept admission." In 1998, Cornell's trustees adopted what would become the current "needs-blind admission" policy for citizens of the United States, Canada and Mexico -- that is, accepting students regardless of their ability to pay and assisting in meeting their demonstrated financial need through a variety of programs and loans.

We invite your comments on this story and will post your thoughts here. Only signed e-mail will be considered.

Nov. 2, 2006: Comment from Dennis Vail '72, <denvail@sbcglobal.net>:
Asians, while technically a minority, are superior to all other population groups in academic achievement and, on the whole, much better off financially than Blacks or Hispanics. They need no special consideration, and their representation in the student body will take care of itself.

While I am willing to conduct applicant interviews, I no longer recommend to middle-class kids that they apply to Cornell. They and their families can't afford it. I'm convinced that Cornell and the other schools maintaining similar financial-aid policies are progressively becoming institutions of the rich and the poor from which the middle class is largely excluded. My son was admitted to Cornell some years ago but chose to attend UT Austin, mostly for financial reasons. He now has a Ph.D. from Berkeley and is teaching at a good university. In recruiting and in awarding financial aid, Cornell et al should consider not only which of the "qualified" applicants have the greatest financial need, but which are most likely to take what the university has to offer and turn it to the benefit of society..........Dennis Vail, Beaumont, Texas, Grad '72

Nov. 2, 2006: Comment from Bart Mills '64, <bartandnancy@adelphia.net>:
In answer to richard e. ripple: no doubt asians are omitted because it's an article about increasing student economic diversity as reflected in efforts to recruit and fund under-represented minorities, a category broadly understood to mean blacks and Hispanics.........bart mills '64

Nov. 2, 2006: Comment from Josh Goldman '02, <jdgoldma@fas.harvard.edu>:
Thank you for your excellent story on minority recruitment at Cornell. However, I would like to point out that the comparison with Harvard was misleading in one respect: the number of students reached by the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (no family contribution for families with an AGI of $40,000 or lower originally $60,000 or lower) actually reaches very few students. I don't have the numbers (perhaps Caroline Hoxby in the economics department would share them with you), but there are very few students here whose families come from that income bracket (the plurality, if not majority of whom are from Stuyvesant High School, where they certainly have not been educationally disadvantaged), and the number of students coming from that income bracket increased by a sizable percent but a very small number (perhaps even single digits) as a result of HFAI.

Essentially, the missing point was a comparison of the percentage and the total number of students in that income bracket at Cornell and at peer universities..........Josh Goldman '02

Nov. 1, 2006: Comment from L. Itskowitz, <lexiboo94@adelphia.net>:
What is this preoccupation with Black and Hispanic bean-counting? Cornell would do better if the concern was academic excellence, not skin color. This obsession with designated minorities is so passe.........L. Itskowitz

Oct. 19, 2006: Comment from Richard E. Ripple, <rer2@cornell.edu>:
Undergraduate enrollment by race/ethnicity table. Why not Asians? This is insensitive if not offensive. Why not Asians? Bad form. Please explain; and not with lame reasons that are non-compelling. Do not try to persuade us that they are not minorities. We're not stupid out here. We read the stuff. Why not Asians?.........RER