The debate over the retention of the need-blind admissions policy is fundamentally a question about allocating scarce resources. We believe that foregoing spending on teachers, labs, and equipment in order to pay for student financial aid will have serious detrimental effects on the quality of our education and student life in general. We do not believe that moving to a need aware system is morally bankrupt or that it will greatly harm Macalester’s character. We have no illusions about our privileged and marginal (in the sense that it involves very few people) position in society at large. For those reasons moving to a need-aware policy seems very reasonable.

But the debate should not be over yet. Lamentably, it seems quite clear to us that the outcome of the debate around need-blind admissions will be determined by more than a scarcity of funds; it will be determined by a scarcity of ideas, by our failure to imagine new ways to raise money and cut costs. With that in mind, here is our contribution to the imagination of Macalester College as we ponder ways to save need blind admissions.

12 Ways to Save Need Blind Admissions:

1. Increase the size of the economics department. We haven’t seen the alumni giving data, but we are told that econ students account for 50% of donations to the college. In terms of raising future revenue, the marginal benefit of expanding the economics department is the greatest of any department on campus.

2. Abandon perpetuity accounting. A recurring fact in the debate is that Macalester needs to increase its endowment by around 40 million dollars a year to cover the increases in the financial aid budget. This is because Macalester draws from its endowment at the rate of 5% a year and since the endowment is supposed to grow at 5% a year, in the long run the endowment remains constant. Why? Who cares if Macalester goes broke in 150 years? We don’t, especially if Macalester goes broke by educating the best students in the world, who go on to run the world. In that sense, going broke in exchange for world domination seems like a deal. Ultimately, this may not prove too damaging if the college is able to offset the decrease in the endowment by greater fundraising and alumni giving. Besides, if we change the withdrawal rate now, we can always change it back later.

3. Upgrade the CDC. Macalester should have the best CDC in the country. Sure it would be initially expensive, but if it helps students and alums get and retain high-paying/meaningful/exciting jobs, and if we emphasize alumni giving, its present cost would be offset by long run increases in alumni giving.

4. Better emphasize alumni giving. We are aware that the alumni office has already made great strides here, but this is not a project they can do alone. Encourage faculty and staff to remind students how special and how needy Macalester is. A sense of gratitude should emanate from the classrooms. Professors should emphasize that the system of paying for higher education in this country is ridiculous; the cost of educating a student at Macalester is around 45 grand a year (tuition doesn’t cover the full bill), while the benefits from that education are spread out over a lifetime. The conventional wisdom in Old Main as well as Weyerhaeuser and 77 Mac should be that alumni-giving is a means of repaying all of our debt to the college.

5. Better transparency in college finances, complete with illustrative anecdotes, may lead to increases in efficiency. What if President Rosenberg explained every year at the first-year enrollment ceremony that in order to maintain need-blind admissions Macalester buys student chairs from Target instead of Pier One Imports? Maybe students would take better care of school property if it was explicitly linked with need-blind admissions.

6. Do not compromise the faculty pay. Professor Rachleff said in the debate that he has never known a faculty to turn down a position at Macalester because of pay. We don’t believe that; clearly, pay affects our ability to hire and retain the best faculty. Since an able and enthusiastic faculty is necessary for creating competitive students and for creating the kind of environment that students will remember fondly when they donate as alumni, we must richly reward the faculty. Not all rewards must be monetary, however. Why not have faculty appreciation days? If we took the time one day each spring to write a card or a note for our professors, surely this would make Macalester an even more attractive place to teach. Our current professor of the year award ceremony is woefully under-attended; President Rosenberg should show leadership in encouraging students to attend this event. Additionally, why not expand this event to include a new reward for the best young faculty member? Perhaps he or she could receive a bronze apple plaque and an apple in their mailbox every day for a year. It is long past time for Macalester to imagine new traditions and ways to remind our professors how much they matter to us.

7. Eliminate the vans immediately. The school already recognizes that we have an inefficient van system. We lease new $40,000 vans and then under-utilize their capacity in order to afford the insurance. That’s stupid. Why not buy a dozen used minivans for $2000 each and insure them cheaply? If they break, have a mechanically inclined work-study student repair the van.

8. Increase the value added to our current students. Macalester already does an excellent job of giving students the resources they need to be competitive at grad schools. But we can do better. Summer research grants, such as the Keck Grant, are under-funded. Any student with a reasonable idea and who can find a faculty member to conduct research with should be funded. Two or three thousand dollars is a small price to pay for the research experience that leads to enrollment in strong grad school programs. Especially since the successes of the alumni influence future school income through alumni giving and our ability to attract students (Kofi Annan, anyone?).

9. Increase college private-sector partnerships to generate revenue. This is a potentially huge and relatively untapped source of revenue for the college with significant external benefits to the quality of the student education. It’s incredible that we’re not doing this already. Each summer we should have economics students running regressions for consulting firms; geography students doing GIS mapping for municipal governments; theater students putting on traveling productions; biology students consulting for the DNR; chemistry students researching for 3M; and anthropology students conducting ethnographies for marketing firms. No, we are not proposing that students and faculty be required to work during their summers, but since most students are working already, and since it can be difficult for students to find employment in their chosen field, doesn’t it make sense for various departments to sponsor work programs? Students could even receive credit. Think of the benefits for students of applying their liberal arts skills in the “real world.”

10. Similarly, sports teams should host clinics in the summer. For example, we have a top soccer team; perhaps some of them would be willing to run a soccer camp. While they would be paid and working under the auspices of Macalester, they would raise revenue for the significant pre-season expenses of housing and feeding athletes for an extra two weeks.

11. Generate revenue from Macalester’s biggest asset—students—during a period of their underemployment: J-term. Imagine: What if we could institute some program that would affirm our core value of internationalism, differentiate ourselves from other schools, require students to sacrifice for their Macalester education in a personally rewarding way, all while increasing the college’s revenue? Who would possibly hire 500 students for five weeks each year? Dam builders? No, the Chinese. Every year China hires thousands of graduates to teach English in their schools. With a little bit of legwork, Macalester could partner with a Chinese exchange program to send 500 students to teach English for five weeks. Students would be required to do it once during their four years. If students are really committed to need-blind admissions, then they ought to be willing to work for it. Besides, how cool would it be to indirectly require every student at Mac to have a passport? That seems like a neat way to recruit students and market ourselves.

12. What does the data suggest about the effects of lowering tuition on the yield of high-income students? Certainly it matters to upper middle class parents if they are paying 24 or 34 grand a year. If Macalester lowered tuition, richer students would be likelier to attend, which would offset the decrease in revenue.