According to Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin, a need-blind admissions policy is still out of reach for Tufts. But, it's getting closer.
The selection process for the class of 2010 was "more need blind" than the process that produced the class of 2009, Coffin said in an e-mail to the Daily.
Tufts' best applicants are admitted regardless of financial need, Coffin explained to the Daily last year. But for a small group that falls along the admissions borderline, money can tip the admit decision.
A slow progression towards a fully need-blind policy will be a trend for years to come, Coffin said.
"Since it will more likely take time to raise the necessary endowment funds, each admissions cycle will move a step or two closer to [a need blind process]," he wrote. "Unless we receive a multi-million dollar gift to this end, we will not reach a definitive moment when Tufts will declare 'we are need-blind.'"
Boston College, Harvard, Yale and Georgetown universities are all need-blind, Yale having been so since 1966, the school's Web site said.
Jack Dunn, Boston College's Director of Public Affairs, told the Boston College Observer in a May 3 article that there are thirty need-blind colleges in the country.
Tufts is making slow and steady progress. "We have been increasing financial aid faster than the operating budget as a whole, two to three percentage points faster than the increase in tuition, so that each year we make progress towards the eventual goal." Coffin wrote.
Yet the stiff costs of education-including ever-increasing professor salaries and demand for extensive technology and library resources-restricts the funds Tufts can direct toward financial aid.
Colleges have a particularly tough time reigning in and cutting costs, said University Provost Jamshed Bharucha, because of the human factors involved.
"Education is a people business," he said. "Institutions of higher education can't reduce their costs like manufacturers by replacing their people with technology."
And the competition for the best students is getting stiffer.
"[The] goal posts keep shifting because we are competing in admissions with stronger and stronger institutions," Bharucha said. "Tufts' competitors' need-blind status gives them an edge when freshmen are deciding between similar schools."
"The Ivies are creating richer and richer financial aid packages, so that means we have to strive even more," Bharucha said.
Tufts will be unveiling its Capital Campaign in November, "an opportunity to set some goals, get our constituents energized, and raise our sights about the amount of money Tufts raises," Bharucha said.
Funds raised in the Capital Campaign will go to financial aid, in addition to other improvements to student and faculty life. Some of these plans originated as recommendations in a 2002-03 report by the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience.
The report does focus on blind admissions, but only as a "long term goal," Bharucha said.
"Going need-blind in undergraduate admissions is an ambitious goal and, even for institutions that are need blind, it's a challenge to stay need blind," Coffin said.
