When I picked up a copy of last Monday's slimmer Tufts Daily, I noticed the sports page had been supplanted by a full-page advertisement. Intrigued, I read on. It was hard to ignore the block print and the myriad of signatures dotting the bottom of the page. Billing itself as the Tufts Student Fund, the ad explained an initiative to "support a fellow classmate who is in financial need" by providing a one-year scholarship to "ensure a student's continued presence at Tufts." I read on incredulously as protests and objections rose to the top of my mind. Since this initial reaction, further contemplation has only solidified my opposition to the Tufts Student Fund. After sharing them with my friends, I decided it would be beneficial to share them with the community, if only to start a discussion about just what "active citizenship" is or whether we are truly stepping up or only going through the motions.
The first question that should be in every Jumbo's mind regards University President Lawrence Bacow's e-mails to the Tufts community. Bacow noted in October that "We [the University] have a moral obligation to continue to meet the full need of all undergraduates currently enrolled at Tufts, and we will do so." He further emphasized in November "that our highest priority is our students. That commitment includes continuing to meet our undergraduates' full financial need." Call me callous, but I understand Bacow's words in their most literal meaning. The responsibility for financial aid rests solely with the university as an institution, not the university as a community. If this student is truly in financial need, that is, demonstrated need as defined by the federal government and Tufts University, the university is committed to meeting that need. If the Tufts Student Fund aims to replace university aid with Tufts Student Fund aid, it is a hollow aim — one that does not truly change whether one's best friend will be at Tufts next year.
While Bacow noted that some faculty members have agreed to voluntary salary reductions, we would not expect all faculty members to reduce their salaries to freeze tuition. So why do we expect many members of the student body to contribute their money to another's tuition? When Dan Slate talks of "forgoing your Monday morning coffee once," he seeks to trivialize the personal assets of the student body. Perhaps he and the other signatories of the Tufts Student Fund receive pocket money from their parents for textbooks and other expenses. However, there are many of us who work hard throughout the summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks in order to pay for the "extra" expenses like books, rent, dorm room amenities and yes, that Monday morning coffee that our parents do not feel responsible for, rightly so. Whether we choose to spend our money toward charities like Relay for Life, toward our social life, toward our significant others or perhaps just saving it for the future is our choice. The Tufts Student Fund has sought to shame students into contributing by saying, in an e-mail to the sophomore class, "your friends, teammates, classmates, and neighbors" may be missing from the campus next year unless we all "help to keep our community intact by contributing to the Tufts Student Fund." This subtle shaming of the student body is unacceptable and disingenuous, considering Tufts' commitment to meeting every student's demonstrated financial need.
Shame is a familiar topic for our Tufts Community Union (TCU) senators. While the Senate has made many constructive and important decisions like implementing the JoeyTracker and putting off what the Senate will actually do with the recovered funds, they still find time to assuage their white guilt. Before I am jumped on for using such a loaded term, I will admit it is true there are TCU senators who are not white. I use this term, however, thanks to my close reading of TCU President Duncan Pickard's "Many Stories, One Community" speech, where he stated that "recognizing guilt and shame, I think, is the first step to being a change agent." I can only assume that the guilt and shame Pickard refers to is in the previous paragraph about his "struggle to think about how I might have perpetuated a negative environment here inadvertently because I am a part of so many dominant groups…play[ing] a part in making some people feel uncomfortable just because I'm one of a roomful of white, male faces." Pickard's continued attempts at opening a dialogue about class have been lampooned thanks to the above statements and the following excerpt from his letter to the Daily on Feb. 24: "Personally, I'm in the middle class. I fall just below the threshold for financial aid, and paying for the costs associated with Tufts beyond tuition — on-campus tickets, eating out, winter hats — is tough. We also can't forget about the middle class." Despite this assertion, Pickard and the Tufts Student Fund do just that, forgetting the middle class and asking us to forgo that Monday morning coffee that Pickard admits is, even for him, so tough to pay for.
The Tufts Student Fund, far from responding to President Barack Obama's challenge, instead works in opposition to Obama's goals. Just as the government does not tax the poorest and provides welfare for the very poor, the university gives loan-free financial aid to families that gross under $40,000 annually. Yet, despite Obama's call to relieve pressure on the middle-class — an ill-defined range of income to begin with — Tufts University and the Tufts Student Fund seek to perpetuate the middle class squeeze, from those that receive marginal financial aid to those that "fall just below the threshold" like Pickard. Beyond the philosophical objections noted above, I am skeptical about the mechanics of the fund itself.
While the initial advertisements did not make it clear whether the student had already been chosen, a recent Daily article reported that the student has yet to be chosen. The financial aid office will choose him (or her) once fundraising ends. This implies that the student will not apply for consideration and instead will get selected from those already receiving financial aid. This is not aid for middle-class students who have trouble securing that sky-high interest rate, definitely-not-a-PLUS loan. This is not for the middle-class family that has seen wage cuts and rising costs-of-living that inhibit tuition payments and will not be able to demonstrate need through numbers, but by sacrifices. In addition, it is the practice of our financial aid office, as well as other schools, that when a student receives scholarships or outside grants, his (or her) university grant money is reduced by that amount. Since this student has presumably demonstrated full financial need, a would-be comprehensive package is whittled down through unnecessary student action. While this may free up $25,000 or more for the financial aid office to allocate elsewhere, why not just designate the Tufts Student Fund as a general donation to financial aid, not to one particular student?
Yet the Tufts Student Fund asks us to donate to a single student to be chosen by the financial aid office. What will be the criteria? How is one student more deserving of aid than another? Some students would gladly take out thousands in loans to attend Tufts, while others would simply follow the money. What will happen next year if a rising senior is not chosen? Will this one-year scholarship increase to support this student who "otherwise might not be able to remain at Tufts" in subsequent years? How can students be sure that this money is actually "ensuring a student's continued presence at Tufts," rather than supplanting already-allocated financial aid? What about students who are just outside receiving financial aid and have the tough task of paying the additional costs that Pickard so kindly noted in his class letter? These questions and more come to mind.
Rather than calling for a freeze on university tuition, identifying cuts in the Student Activity Fee or other universal forms of cutting costs, the TCU Senate chose rhetoric. They chose the politics of shame, guilt, class division, partisanship and hyperbole. Definitively and quantitatively, it is hyperbole to assert that a student with demonstrable need will not be at Tufts next year for lack of financial aid. If that occurred, it would break Bacow's promise to the Tufts community. Furthermore, according to the information available to the student body, only students with demonstrable need will receive this aid. The TCU Senate and the Tufts Student Fund must explain this apparent paradox and the other above concerns before students put faith in this effort.
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John K. Atsalis is a sophomore majoring in International Relations.
