Sins of the father

At Duke, the assumption that a student’s parents will pay the expected family contribution—as determined by the University—undergirds much of the financial aid process and helps to determine the amount of aid a student receives. Recent reports emphasize, however, that parents of students at universities across the country refuse to pay the expected parental contribution toward their child’s education, saddling students with an added financial burden. Although parents’ motivations for withdrawing financial support vary, many cases involve parents for whom the expected family contribution exceeds their means—often these individuals make enough money to disqualify them for need-based aid but do not make enough to pay for college without significant difficulty. Likewise, some tight-pursed parents object to their child’s religion, lifestyle, sexual orientation or ideology.

If a student’s parents have the means to pay the expected family contribution, then they have an obligation to contribute that amount. The absence of the parental contribution only shifts costs onto students or the University, creating an unfair distribution of responsibility. But when parents refuse to cough up the dough, universities must have a process in place for dealing with these issues so that students do not unfairly suffer. As universities lack both the authority and power to demand that parents pay, they have little choice but to institutionalize a process for resolving parental contribution woes.

Duke’s current policy for dealing with these kinds of situations states: “It is important for [students] and [their] parents to be aware that we will not reduce expected contribution as consequence of a family’s financial decisions, such as refusing to pay educational costs.” The University’s callous and inflexible stance unjustly denies recourse to students who cannot cover the expected family contribution on their own, forcing these students to choose between taking on what is often significant financial responsibility and dropping out of school altogether. Students deserve better. Although subsidizing every student whose parents halt payments may encourage more parents to close their checkbooks, refusing even to consider extenuating factors in a student’s ability to pay seems unreasonable and cold-hearted.

The University lacks the present means to cover these additional costs. In the long term, Duke needs to raise the bar to support these students, but in the meantime, we demand that the University change its policy to account for students in extraordinary circumstances. Institutionalizing a process by which students can bring issues of parents’ unwillingness to pay to the attention of the Financial Aid Office would not only send a signal to parents and students that the University recognizes the seriousness of the issue, but also allow for nuanced and student-specific solutions.

The University’s current policy position on this issue is just one example of financial aid rhetoric that often seems blind to the realities students face. Although Duke often touts its aid as need-blind, the policy does not extend to international students, and despite its commitment to covering a student’s demonstrated need, the University has not kept up with other major universities in offering no-loan aid. If Duke desires to maintain its commitment to financial aid, then its policies need to change to reflect reality.