A student group calling itself Defend Need Blind at Macalester (DNBAM) plans to release a report supporting the current need-blind admissions policy and posing alternative ways to alleviate the college’s fiscal crunch.

DNBAM co-founder Seth Schlotterbeck ’06 said the idea for the report arose out of a desire to better inform the student population on all aspects of the proposed shift to a need-aware admissions policy, with the planned trustee vote in January rapidly approaching.

“We’ve been told, time and again, that if we want to have a voice in this debate we need to understand the issue better,” Schlotterbeck said.

A recent survey conducted by the Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) indicated that, as of press time, while 63 percent of students feel that the issue of need-blind admissions affects [them] personally, only 52 percent believe they have a sufficient voice in the policy process.

Only a quarter of respondents said they attended an information session on the issue or read the Resource and Planning Committee's 72-page report proposing a shift to a partially need-aware policy, which only recently became available online.

That report, presented to the Board of Trustees last spring, proposes controlling Macalester's burgeoning financial aid expenditures by allowing admissions officers to consider an applicant’s ability to pay during the admission process.

The RPC also proposes that the college continue to meet the full demonstrated need of all admitted students.

Need-blind advocates have criticized the RPC report for relying too heavily on peer-group comparisons with other liberal arts colleges and assessments of Macalester's value according to its ranking in U.S. News and World Reports.

“When we first started reading [the RPC report] I think we expected to be convinced that this policy change was a matter of necessity,” Schlotterbeck said. “But by the time I was finished, I was right back where I started.”

Schlotterbeck hopes that his group's alternative proposal will educate students on policy issues and will allow more students to enter the debate on an even footing with administrators.

DNBAM has generated a set of recommendations for addressing the college's fiscal shortfall without implementing a change in admissions policy. Members say their solution is both ethically sound and economically feasible.

DNBAM will hold an information session in John B. Davis Lecture Hall next Wednesday and plans to release its report within the next several weeks.

Their most unique fiscal recommendation is a temporary increase in tuition from 6.9 to roughly eight percent, a rate that exceeds traditional tuition inflation at Macalester.

DNBAM members believe the increase in tuition will provide the additional revenues needed to support Macalester’s sizable financial aid budget over the next several years while the college's endowment rises back up to healthier levels.

DNBAM members tout this tuition increase as a practical short-term alternative to permanently changing the college’s admissions policy.

But Treasurer David Wheaton says that the students’ math has a critical flaw. Any substantial increase in annual tuition, he said, would simply induce a corresponding hike in tuition discounts for the numerous students that receive financial aid.

As a result, Wheaton said, the majority of additional revenue would come from students paying full or near-full tuition, a group that comprises only about 30 percent of all students.

Still, Wheaton said he believes the students’ ideas have some validity and stressed that he will closely examine the forthcoming proposal before coming to any final conclusions.

DNBAM also supports an aggressive capital campaign and lobbied the administration to solicit federal grant money to support the college’s operating budget.

However, for the need-blind advocates in DNBAM, posing a perfectly viable financial solution may be of less importance than simply reaffirming a basic set of ideological principles for the college.

“Throwing huge sums of money at the school is not the only way of solving the problem,” group member David Boehnke ’07 said, who said he believes Macalester's standards of academic excellence derive more from the recruitment of diverse, high-caliber students than its ability to spend more money on students once they are here.

Schlotterbeck voiced similar feelings. “I think its important to figure out where we want to go as an institution,” he said. “[We need] to define our priorities as a college that is committed to multiculturalism and diversity [in a way that] doesn't bend so easily to our budget.”

Meanwhile, advocates of the policy admissions policy change, endorsed by the faculty at their meeting on Wednesday, argue that Macalester's ability to attract diverse and talented students dovetails with the college’s ability to spend money on students.

“I don't think the college would be having this conversation if we weren't already trying everything else we could to keep Mac the same place we built it to be,” Wheaton said.