Lizzy Donker, Editor-in-Chief
Sewanee stopped meeting the full demonstrated need for incoming classes in the Spring of 2024. Though this change does not affect current students who enrolled between the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2024, it has the potential to affect the composition of Sewanee’s future student body.
The change occurred due to last year’s changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and its delayed rollout, which The University said had significant effects on Sewanee’s financial aid process and packages.
“This new approach with financial aid is designed to distribute resources more strategically, so we can continue offering robust support to the greatest number of students over the long term,” said Dean of Admission Alan Ramirez. “In addition to scholarships and financial aid, our new financial aid structure allows the University to continue to invest in faculty and student resources and campus improvements that enrich the educational experience.”
As of the 2022-23 academic year, the latest year for which data is available, 96 percent of undergraduate students at Sewanee were awarded any financial aid, with the average amount of aid awarded being $34,063 , according to the university’s statistics reported to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS).
The University began promising to meet the full need of both domestic and international students in 2020. That made Sewanee and Vanderbilt the only institutions to meet 100 percent need in Tennessee.
In 2019, the University rolled out the offer, telling area media that this promise was an attempt to return to Sewanee’s “historic commitment to meeting 100 percent of our students’ demonstrated financial needs.” This was done with an additional eight million dollars allocated towards need-based financial aid.
Some faculty and staff have since questioned whether this was a realistic and sustainable financial goal for the university.
And while the University’s Board of Regents committed to return to meeting the full need of all of its undergraduate students by 2026, as of spring 2024 this promise has ended.
Amid the changes, Ramirez told The Sewanee Purple, the University remains committed to being as financially accessible as possible, “Our priority is to ensure that overall cost is not an insurmountable barrier to being a student at Sewanee.”
Ramirez said the changes in financial aid should not affect the future makeup of Sewanee’s student body. “We do not anticipate any major changes to the composition of our student body as a result of the new financial aid strategy.”
Some students have a different opinion.
A current senior, who was able to attend Sewanee only after receiving full-financial funding, shared her concern over full-demonstrated need no longer being met. “I think it’s just awful,” said the student. “I think to get rid of it what would happen would definitely be a decrease in the diversity and not even just ethnically, but it’s good to have an educational environment with people with different backgrounds, people with different needs.”
“If people who come from [money] aren’t sitting in rooms with people and aren’t required to engage with people who don’t come from that sort of affluence, they’re not really encouraged to see the world differently.”
“I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t be here without that support,” said a junior who recieves funding based on demonstrated need. “The Sewanee experience is incredibly meaningful to me, and limiting access by not meeting need would fundamentally change the character of this community.”
The junior student recognized the need for diversity at Sewanee and the risks associated with ending the commitment to meet full demonstrated need. “Removing that support risks narrowing who gets to be part of it. We should protect the opportunity for all students, regardless of background, to share in this experience.”
The sentiment among some Sewanee students and staff is that this change might be an attempt by the University to recover from a short-sighted allocation of resources that was more a marketing ploy than a realistic budgetary decision. And students are now hearing that the faculty’s budget priorities committee and an administration deficit-cutting task force are considering sizable budget cuts in the near future.
Regardless of the potential practicality of the decision to do away with meeting full need, students say that it may have detrimental impacts on the future of Sewanee’s student body.
“You don’t want just a bunch of privileged white kids running around,” the senior student said.