Harvard College recently announced that it will be “free for students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or less and tuition-free for students from families with annual incomes of $200,000 or less.” MIT also announced that students whose family income is under $200,000 a year will be attending tuition-free 2025-26 onwards.
Not much prior, Duke’s Board of Trustees approved a 5.93% increase in the undergraduate cost of attendance for the 2025-26 academic year. It is not problematic for a university to increase its cost of attendance, of course. Even a simple economic viewpoint necessitates keeping up with inflation and other costs. However, for several years now, Duke has reported the third-highest tuition in the Ivy+, trailing behind only Columbia and the University of Chicago. While recent initiatives like the expansion of financial aid for low-income students from North Carolina and South Carolina should be celebrated, these must be contextualized as a toddler’s first steps when placed next to the miles other universities are walking. Duke remains one of the few institutions of its kind not to make engaged efforts to join the fray of fully need-blind admissions: a process that emphasizes a university’s belief in accepting students of merit, not just of means.
It remains one of the least socioeconomically diverse undergraduate institutions in the bracket. This is reflected in social activities and academic interests here on the daily. From flying to Europe on a whim for spring break, to dropping thousands to find friends in Greek Life organizations, many activities that make the “Duke Experience” are outcomes of mind-boggling wealth and connections. And while the “infamous” New York Times article was written in 2023, even two years later, the truth holds: the DukeLIFE room, nested in the third floor of Perkins, the floor of frat and finance bros, remains empty. Its emptiness shines the continued shame and lack of acceptance on this campus to associate with such identities. It seems like economic diversity became a blind spot in the other countless diversity measures that Duke was targeting. This is even though the notion of economic diversity continues to be a bi-partisan haven in an era of rapid polarization and stigmatization of any word even close to diversity.
Of course, Duke is diverse in many ways: I have met a variety of people from countless identities and cultures. Yet there is one thing apart from our Duke education that connects most students: economic wealth. So when this connection is broken by students who’ve crossed these “unbreakable” barriers, their existence alone on this campus redefines what it means to be a Duke student. We bring our unique lived experiences to the intellectual discourse on this campus, reflect our identities into social activities, and innovate based on notions that someone with economic privilege might have never thought about.
By admitting students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, Duke has the potential to change the trajectories of entire families. When it continues to gatekeep itself as an education exclusively for students with economic means, it loses the opportunity to be changed and redefined by magnificent, intellectually driven and curious students whose only misfortune was not being born with a silver spoon and a trust fund.
In the newest and “most ambitious fundraising campaign in its history,” Made For This, Duke claims that it has audacious goals for the future: with pillars in science and technology, student experience, climate and health. This campaign is the first of its kind since 2017, and is unique in the sense that no campaign goal is publicly announced, unlike the $3.25 billion target of Duke Forward (which was exceeded by $0.6 billion). The student experience pillar of the campaign emphasizes “encouraging rich exploration across disciplines,” creating the “highest level of academic excellence,” and ensuring the “best and brightest students” thrive at Duke.
The commitment to improving student access to a university slowly inching to a $100,000-per-year cost of attendance is not as central as it should be, instead emphasizing the (long due) update to the curriculum and expectedly, QuadEx. This is disheartening, especially considering some of the university’s major donors, like David Rubenstein, were from working-class backgrounds and had scholarships that made their Duke experience possible. If the students Duke has invested in years back are now returning their investment in countless multipliers, why is there such a hazy focus on investing more to improve access? If Duke wants its students to innovate and flourish like Harvard, or the other Ivies, why doesn’t it voice or even target the same commitments that these institutions are making?
Brown fully covers tuition for families earning $125,000 or less with typical assets. Princeton covers tuition, room and board for families that earn up to $100,000 annually. These examples are not anomalies, because there are countless other institutions better than and on par with Duke’s caliber providing these offerings. When other universities deliver on promises to level the playing field, create broader experiences and meaning to their student bodies, it hurts.
Does Duke not value the students who have crossed the many disparities brought on by class, income, and lifestyle? Do they not deserve to have a larger hold in shaping what is the “Duke Experience?” Or should we all just stay mum, locked up in our dorms over spring break? Or should we spend what little we have on overpriced merch and the running expenditures of tenting? Or go into debt to be in Greek Life, just to fit in socially? And if you say that is not what the Duke Experience is about, then what is?
Even beyond the sociocultural scene that molds the Duke Experience, academic life here is also shaped by socioeconomic experiences. When I was applying to college, it was incredibly reassuring to me to see financial aid information like this from institutions I dreamed of. It signaled their want for students of all backgrounds, not just those who could regularly afford to pay a five-digit sticker price every semester, especially one that is now increasing at almost twice the rate of inflation.
When I was accepted to Duke, I was overjoyed and grateful for its financial support. But how does one make up the ease of academic pursuit fueled by years of personal attention, private school counseling and college consultants? I felt like my peers had everything and more figured out, while I struggled to shove myself into the mold of being a Blue Devil. And this is not just a singular experience: students from middle-class families suffer even more, grappling with the less-than-generous financial aid that compels them to finance their endeavors through multiple on and off-campus jobs. You hear these struggles in muffled whispers and mutters in the corners of Vondy because sometimes, it feels like not being rich here is simply not an option.
Duke desperately needs the lives and lived experiences of a variety of students. It also needs to commit itself to empowering the students who make it what it is. There are Blue Devils and their parents who are working hard to finance the educational opportunity of a lifetime, and there is so much more that we can do to support them. If we want Blue Devils to change the world, we need to give them the resources to do so.
Shambhavi Sinha is a Trinity sophomore.
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