Investing in opportunity
The University renews its financial commitment to students who can make the most of Chicago’s uniquely powerful and rigorous education—both undergraduate and graduate.
John Thomas III and Kimberlee Pelster represent a powerful trend at the University of Chicago—a renewed financial commitment to invest in students’ educations.
In 2007, that commitment reached a high-water mark of $199.8 million, the University’s total expenses for both graduate and undergraduate aid. While Chicago has always embraced an economically diverse student body, this increase in scholarship support is a telling metric about Chicago’s intention, in President Zimmer’s words, to recruit “those students who can most benefit from, and contribute to, Chicago’s uniquely powerful and rigorous education, whatever their financial circumstances.”
John Thomas III is the kind of scholar many universities would like to entice—a high-performing doctoral student conducting original research in an area of inquiry where he will leave a mark. Thomas’s expertise is the Andes—the black Andes. He studied black culture in Peru on an IIE Fulbright grant and plans to extend that study to Ecuador and Venezuela. Given the region’s dearth of data, Thomas must create and collect it himself.
Chicago’s legendary culture of multidisciplinarity was one reason Thomas chose the University’s political science department.
But equally important was the matter of financial support. Starting in 2007, the University’s Graduate Aid Initiative provides incoming doctoral students in the social sciences and humanities with a consistent generous package of support, including tuition waivers, health insurance, a teaching assistantship, two summers of research support, and a stipend for living expenses. The program represents a financial commitment of nearly $50 million over six years.
Graduate Aid Initiative
And on February 21, the Provost’s Office announced that the Graduate Aid Initiative will extend to doctoral students in the Divinity School. In addition, the University will provide nearly $5 million in new support over the next five years for current doctoral students in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity.By 2013, the University will provide graduate students with an estimated $13 million annually in new support.
This new model sends a clear signal: the best and brightest students will be supported throughout their doctoral studies—and they will be able to complete their degrees as expeditiously as possible.
Odyssey Scholarship Program
At the same time, undergraduate financial aid is being transformed by the Odyssey Scholarship Program, which will eventually affect 25 percent of the College’s students—and half of its students on financial aid.
For students like second-year Kimberlee Pelster, such support can mean a great deal. The public policy major will bring a much-needed insider’s perspective to her chosen field of child welfare: when she was in sixth grade, she herself entered the foster care system. Currently, her financial aid package includes loans she will have to pay back after graduation, as well as contributions out of earnings from three part-time jobs.
“Many students will see the loan portions of their financial aid packages entirely replaced with grants,” says Vice-President and Dean of College Enrollment Michael Behnke. “They will graduate without a debt burden.” And with concern about debt removed, students will be able to avoid excessive hours at jobs.
Slated to begin in autumn 2008, the program will dramatically affect more than 1,200 College students from low- and moderate-income families—the first beneficiaries. About 800 students will have no loan expectation; the rest will have their loan expectation reduced by half. The University has undertaken to raise another $300 million to fully fund the Odyssey program.
Chicago’s need-blind admission policy means that students are accepted without regard for their economic situation, and once they are admitted, the University is committed to making up the difference between costs and the amount that the student and his or her family can pay. This year, nearly half of all undergraduates received some form of aid, with the average package equaling $19,934.
Programs such as the Odyssey Scholarships and the Graduate Aid Initiative make a Chicago education available to the widest economic vector of students. “At Chicago, we measure our self worth not by wealth but by whether or not we have good ideas,” says Behnke. “The priority here is academic excellence.”
