President Rosenberg’s proposal to abandon need-blind admission represents a radical departure from Macalester’s bedrock values. Indeed, the very discussion of the subject is a slap in the face to every current and former student who benefits from the college’s commitment to diversity and access.

First, a little background information: With a need-blind admissions policy, a student’s financial circumstances have no bearing on the admissions process. Need-blind admission is standard practice at most leading private colleges and universities in America, including every Ivy League school. For a longer list of need-blind schools, go to www.need blind.com.

President Rosenberg’s justification for abandoning need-blind admission is spelled out in a 72-page Resource Planning Committee report. The rationale boils down to this: Need-blind admission is an expensive policy that limits our ability to compete with other colleges, many of which enjoy higher rankings in the annual US News & World Report survey.

The committee makes no attempt to hide its love affair with the US News survey. I count 11 references to the survey in the first nine pages alone. But the committee never even attempts to argue why the survey—deeply flawed as it is—should be used to guide our most important policy decisions. Nor does it succeed in its attempt to argue that Macalester—a school that already finds itself in the highest echelon of American higher education—should jettison needy students in order to fly even higher.

The report does spend a great deal of time twisting the debate and trying to muddy the ethical waters with passages like this: “It is also clear that ethical arguments do not by themselves create an a priori reason for determining admissions policy. They rather provide a background framework that must be filled in with empirical analysis.” I am more than a little concerned that the committee has apparently marshaled empirical data at the expense of ethical considerations. For a decision like this, ethical considerations deserve to be foremost in our minds. They should not be relegated to some conveniently-defined “background framework.”

For his part, Rosenberg raises the rhetorical stakes even higher. In his recent article published in The Mac Weekly, he suggests that Macalester is nearing a financial crisis and the only sensible solution is to abandon need-blind admission.

This viewpoint deserves careful scrutiny. According to a speech Rosenberg delivered to the faculty on Sept. 8, Macalester is currently engaged in an unprecedented plan to invest money in a new fitness center and an updated fine arts building. Rosenberg says this project is part of the “most ambitious in the history of the college.” He notes that the school recently secured a $2 million gift to help finance the new fitness center.

I don’t know how we can talk about rejecting needy applicants in the name of fiscal responsibility on Monday, then gleefully announce our plans to pour millions of dollars into a new fitness facility on Tuesday. The college has yet to persuade me that new treadmills should take precedence over our most basic commitment to social justice.

And yet Rosenberg continually asserts that Macalester ought to limit access (i.e., need-blind admission) in order to preserve some bygone notion of academic sanctity. “What is invested in access to Macalester cannot be invested in what happens at Macalester,” Rosenberg writes in his article. He goes on to write that “to shirk that responsibility by diluting the quality of a Macalester education would be to neglect our primary social obligation and to squander the glorious opportunities with which this college is presented.”

Need-blind admission does not limit academic quality. Need-blind admission creates quality, by guaranteeing that applicants are admitted based on factors like academic achievement and personal accomplishments and never family wealth. A need-blind admissions policy ensures that we have the strongest, most diverse student body possible. That diversity is what happens at Macalester. Our “glorious opportunity” is to build on that diversity.

Rosenberg’s claims that we are already seeing an erosion of academic quality are oversold. He cites a few statistics, none of them compelling, including the student/faculty ratio (it was 10:1, now it’s 11:1) and faculty salaries (they lag behind some comparable schools).

If we are truly experiencing an erosion of academic quality, why are the numbers of applications steadily rising year after year? Why did we just witness the lowest acceptance rate in the history of the college? If we are on the brink of financial disaster, if our classes are so crowded and our professors are so glum about their low salaries, why are so many students lining up at the door?

By its very definition, a so-called “need-aware” admissions policy would give wealthy applicants an explicit advantage in the admissions game. The committee report says financial circumstances would only be used as a tie breaker. This is naÔve. Wealthy applicants already have an edge in the admissions process. There are no ties. Given a choice between a wealthy applicant who scored a 1350 on the SAT and a needy applicant who also scored a 1350, we should always lean toward admitting the needy applicant. Why? Because the needy applicant likely overcame more obstacles. The needy applicant could not afford a Kaplan SAT prep course, an admissions coach, or the luxury of applying under an early decision program (which limits one’s ability to weigh competing financial aid offers). The needy applicant had to work part-time at the local fast-food restaurant while he was in high school and consequently couldn’t afford the private piano lessons or the six-week trip to Europe or any of those things that might impress the admissions committee.

In short, the applicant with fewer opportunities stands to gain more from a Macalester education. The last thing we should do is give a boost to the wealthy applicant simply because his family can afford to pay a higher price. College is not a product to be bought and sold. It is an experience to be shared. As Berkeley public policy professor David Kirp puts it, embedded in any college is the belief in “a community of scholars and not a confederacy of self-seekers.”

Finally, while Macalester does dole out more aid than some of our rival colleges, that fact alone does not free us of from our continuing responsibility to provide access. When it comes to providing basic affordability, we might very well be ahead of the curve, but we’re still barely pulling a passing grade. Fewer than one third of all Macalester students can afford the full cost of a Macalester education. Last year saw a nearly seven percent rise in tuition, room and board. In the United States, fewer than half of all high school graduates whose families earn less than $25,000 attend any four-year college or university, much less an elite, first-tier, private, liberal arts college.

The history of private education in this country is the history of exclusion. Need-blind admission is a necessary mechanism to address the huge socioeconomic disparities that plague most institutions of higher learning, but it’s only a start. Anything less is a step in the wrong direction and a mockery of the college’s own rhetoric in support of service and civic engagement.

Eliminating need-blind admission would send a signal to the world that Macalester, in particular, and the academe, in general, are less serious about all types of diversity. It would discourage needy applicants from applying to college in the first place, and it would forever alter the character of the college. For Macalester to remain a leader in the real world, and not just a leader in the US News survey, it needs to preserve policies that affirm our steadfast commitment to diversity and access.