Financial Future Update Fall 2014

New strategies in admission selection processes produce results.

Grinnell College took a risk this year, and it paid off. Net student revenue for the incoming class of 2018 is expected to increase by more than $1 million. This happened while the College continued its need-blind admission policy and continued to meet 100 percent of students’ demonstrated financial need.

“Since we’re race-aware and aware of states and countries of origin in the selection phase of our process, it’s easier to shape those characteristics of an incoming class,” says Joe Bagnoli, vice-president for enrollment. “It’s more complicated to change the financial need profile of the class since we’re need-blind, but we did.”

The game changer was in the needs analysis process. The College no longer relies solely on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to determine student need. It now requires students to submit the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile as well.

“Grinnell was the only need-blind institution that met 100 percent of students’ demonstrated financial need and did not require the CSS Profile,” Bagnoli says. “Our peers have used it for years.”

The CSS Profile is a more comprehensive assessment of family need. One concern was that it would discourage first-generation students because it requires many more answers, about 150 versus 50 for the FAFSA.

“That was a faulty assumption,” Bagnoli says. “We found that 93 percent of all applicants to Grinnell who applied in prior years for financial aid also had submitted the CSS Profile elsewhere. They weren’t sending it to us because we didn’t require it before this year.”

The more detailed CSS Profile allows for a more precise evaluation of need and a more accurate assessment of a family’s capacity to contribute. “Before adopting the Profile, some families were judged to have greater need,” Bagnoli says. Some families who were deemed to have high financial need before may now be judged to have less need, in which case aid packages are not as significant, he says.

It’s not a radical shift, however. “On average across the whole incoming class, there’s a $3,500 difference in terms of their need, so less in aid is being spent,” Bagnoli says. “In the past, we awarded more financial aid because the FAFSA provided incomplete information on their total financial resources and, in some cases, inflated their financial need.

“As a result, our financial aid offers didn’t as often distinguish us from competitors this year. We want people to choose us because of everything else we offer, not just because of our financial aid.”

Bagnoli notes that for currently enrolled students, the CSS Profile did not result in changes to their financial aid packages unless significant, previously unreported resources were identified in the process.

For the incoming class, the new assessment tool led to a more balanced profile of students entering Grinnell this fall. “We fulfilled our commitment to diversity in all ways — not just with respect to racial, ethnic, state, and country of origin diversity,” Bagnoli says. “Today we’re more diverse, more balanced, in terms of students coming from low, middle, and upper income households.” That includes 15 percent of the class who are first-generation students, most of whom are high need.

The admission staff accomplished this without reference to the financial need of domestic applicants at the selection stage of the process. Instead staff members developed new strategies in the pre- and post-selection phases of admission.

They actively pursued a more robust pool in pre-selection. For example, they called well-qualified but inactive inquirers to encourage them to apply at Grinnell. “We received 225 applications from those students, admitted 98 of them and 22 are expected to enroll,” Bagnoli says. “They contributed to an outstanding academic profile for the entering class and a significant increase in net revenue.”

In the post-selection phase, the admission and communications staffs developed targeted follow-up communication and made important improvements to the College website. Admitted students were also invited to an event on campus. Some of these initiatives were developed to increase the yield on offers of admission to students, including those from more affluent families who have traditionally accepted offers of admission at a much lower rate than high-need students.

“We’ve always admitted students with access to great resources,” Bagnoli says. “We did a better job of converting them this year.”

Net tuition revenue was also affected by admitting a slightly larger group of international students this year (18 percent), compared to 16 percent last year. They are admitted in a need-aware context.

“We can celebrate being socioeconomically, racially, and internationally diverse as well as enrolling a very strong class of students whose academic profile is better than ever,” Bagnoli says.

Glossary of terms

CSS Profile: The College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile is a financial aid application for non-federal student aid such as scholarships and institutional aid. The application process is managed by the College Board, the not-for-profit organization that runs the SAT and Advanced Placement Program.

Need-blind: The practice of considering each applicant’s qualifications for admission without regard to the family’s financial resources or ability to pay.

Net tuition revenue: Total tuition and fees paid by students after subtracting scholarships and grants. Revenue from room and board is not included.