In the short term, the problem of needblind admissions is economic. Opponents of the full-need policy proposed by the RPC fail to recognize that budget cuts are hurting, indeed have already hurt, education at Macalester. It is therefore useful to recount how limited funding is damaging the college.

Nordic skiing, Communication Studies, Urban Studies and the Education Department have been cut. The football team and softball team were both nearly done away with. Geography, Linguistics, Environmental Studies, and Russian Studies would have been ended but for protests from students, faculty, and alumni. Faculty is underpaid and has not received a pay raise in several years, which is sure to affect its performance and loyalty to the college. Staff members are overworked and underpaid. Renovations to the fieldhouse and the Arts building have been put off. Last year the college bestowed tenure on only five professors.

These are signs of an unhealthy institution. The college does not have time to debate how it will pay its bills, so further departments and teams will be cut and more faculty and staff will be laid off. Tuition will rise for students not receiving aid, which will encourage them to go elsewhere, which in turn will force the college to give out more aid and hike tuition again. And so on.

Some have proposed diverting money from the renovations to the fieldhouse and the fine arts building, but that is impossible because donors specifically earmark their contributions to those efforts alone. Nor is it feasible to mount a five year, $40 million capital campaign as need-blind proponents have argued. In all of Macalester’s history, all alumni besides DeWitt Wallace have only given $18.4 million to the college. Alumni are quite aware that their donations already support need-blind, and they have failed to support the college. The fact is that many people who have benefited enormously from their Macalester education have been extremely ungenerous to the institution in return.

Macalester lacks good fundraising networks. This is mainly due to poor financial stewardship under Presidents Gavin and McPherson, President Rosenberg’s most recent predecessors. While alumni gifts have begun to increase since Rosenberg took over, potential donors must be made to feel confident in their investments in Macalester. Adhering to an unsustainable financial commitment is not going to reassure them.

If the current situation is allowed to continue, the school’s academic quality and diversity will decline, which is exactly what happened in the 1970s when the college maintained an irresponsible aid policy. Education, not social policy, is Macalester’s raison d’etre.

Ethical concerns about the long-term consequences of switching away from need-blind are valid, because economic diversity among domestic white students will decline if Macalester adopts the fullneed policy. President Rosenberg is to be commended for his open, engaging approach to solving the financial difficulty. He should also make a return to needblind admissions a top priority when his fundraising efforts pay off.

The accusations that have been leveled at the administration and Resource Planning Committee are misplaced. Students who bemoan a lack of debate in shaping college policy should blame their own ignorance and lassitude. The RPC informed the student body about its recommendations last spring, and indeed, several students, who should be proud of their involvement, served on the RPC itself.

Most disappointingly, some alumni, including Dan Urevick-Ackelsburg, who wrote a letter to The Mac Weekly about his views last week, now threaten to withhold future donations to Macalester if the college switches to full-need. Such a petulant attitude is exactly what got Macalester into this situation in the first place. If alumni really care about need-blind admission, they will give the college more money, not less. That is what I plan to do after I graduate, and I hope others who are upset by this debate draw the same lesson.