With administrators reexamining the University’s no-loan financial aid policy, some students are leading a push to make students and faculty more involved with the undergraduate admissions and financial aid processes.
Barry Weinberg, CC ’12 and president of the Student Governing Board, is spearheading a move to revive the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, a group that has been defunct since 2003. It was originally responsible for making advisory recommendations concerning admissions and financial aid issues.
Similar to the current Committee on the Core Curriculum, CAFA comprised faculty, students, and administrators.
For Weinberg, it is “the faculty and students that are the important ones” in this committee.
University President Lee Bollinger said he supports forming such a committee to discuss admissions and financial aid policies, which “the faculty should be informed about and be able to advise on.”
“Faculty should be involved, at the very least as advisers, for the purposes of giving advice on all issues having to do with academic decision-making,” Bollinger said.
After hearing about possible changes to the University’s financial aid policies, Weinberg began discussing the idea of the committee with administrators last December.
“That sort of decision in previous years would have been looked at by this committee, but now you don’t have faculty and students having a formal way to have a say in this,” Weinberg said.
The proposal is also being supported by CCSC academic affairs representative Bruno Rigonatti Mendes, CC ’14 and a Spectator finance deputy.
Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger said he supports more faculty input on issues like admissions and financial aid but he would like to learn more about the committee.
“We already do have that kind of involvement, and I think that it’s really important involvement,” Shollenberger said. “So those kinds of things I’m really in favor of and are necessary for us to do our job well.”
Dean of Financial Aid Laurie Schaffler, GS ’92, declined to comment, saying she was not involved with the discussion. Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis declined to comment because a permanent dean of Columbia College has not yet been named, she said.
According to Weinberg, the committee played an influential role in several important policy issues in the past. In 1992, the committee passed a proposal for Columbia to stay need-blind, an admissions process that accepts students independent of financial need, he said. In 2000, Weinberg said, it took part in the discussion to move away from loan-based and toward grant-based financial aid.
“It’s not a radical idea,” Weinberg said. “This committee existed for 30 or 40 years. It’s just reviving a practice.”
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