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Controversy surrounds GatewayThe College’s Gateway program — which offers debt relief to low-income Virginia residents — has now become as much a source of controversy as it has of financial aid. Former College President Gene Nichol says he was fired because of it. The BOV says that it’s a necessary program, but severely under-funded. Some even say that that Gateway is old news, part of the presidential initiative of Nichol’s predecessor, Timothy J. Sullivan. But Gateway — in name and in practice — took off with Nichol. It is the idea that came before. “Previous President Tim Sullivan was very concerned with the availability of financial aid and saw that we were lagging behind,” College Provost Geoff Feiss said. “He felt a new initiative would be appropriate and left with the ground[work] prepared and preliminary discussions that ultimately led to the Gateway Program.” Gateway William and Mary, announced by Nichol Aug. 26, 2005, has received a lot of attention over the past few weeks. Gateway offers in-state students whose families’ income is below $40,000 a financial aid package free of student loans, allowing students to graduate from the College without the burden of debt. Feiss also mentioned that three years ago, schools like the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina — which compete with the College for students — both announced similarly aggressive programs to provide additional financial aid to students of a low socioeconomic means. Nichol expressed his commitment to the program within his first or second conversation with the provost, according to Feiss. “Nichol was passionate about the cause from the start. He was first in his family to attend college, so that may be why it resonated so deeply with him,” Feiss said. To secure the $4 million per year required to provide its benefits to 150 students in each class, the program will ultimately require an $80 million endowment. Nichol announced the program before consulting with the Board of Visitors and before an initiative to accrue the endowment was in place. Feiss explained Nichol’s reasoning. “If we waited until the $80 million endowment was secure, it may have taken 10 years, and then it would be $150 million,” he said. “We identified the funding for the first and second years through allocation and new money. The president felt he could go out and raise the $80 million, particularly if Gateway was a demonstratively successful program.” Despite initial controversy due to Nichol’s starting the program before securing funding, everyone in the College administration, including the BOV, supports the program. “We’ve been learning a lot,” he said. “We’ve learned that the Gateway students do just as well here, succeeding at the same rate, with the same wherewithal and intellectual capacity.” “I do not know of any consultation of the Assembly before the creation of this $4 million program,” he said. From Meese’s perspective, “much of the opposition to Gateway has nothing to do with ideology but instead rests on a disagreement about how to spend the College’s very scarce resources.” Despite criticisms of the program’s financing and the loss of Nichol as president, Feiss assured that Gateway is on track to meet its stated goal of providing 600 students with a debt-free education by 2012. “It will certainly be a real project as we move forward,” he said. “But we have been able to maintain momentum and commitment.” |
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So the article’s title is “controversy surrounds Gateway”... but I fail to see where the controversy is. Liberals and conservatives alike have praised it. The only critique of Nichol’s conduct regarding gateway is that he didn’t ensure that there was ENOUGH money for it. In other words, insofar as you can construe the BOV’s actions as having anything to do with Gateway – their concerns seems to be that Nichol didn’t do enough to ensure its viability.
Most everybody likes it – it seems to be successful so far…
... where’s the controversy???
— D Kuehn Feb 28, 09:05 AM #
I think the controversy lies in the fact that the students who came to the College based on Pres. Nichol’s promise to give them a scholarship may wind up on an island because Gateway needs $80M to be viable.
Gateway is a wonderful idea, and I am glad to give money to help get an endowment going. My concern, and the reason I think the BOV made the right decision, is that Pres. Nichol made a commitment he could not keep.
While it remains an academic dicsussion for most, Pres. Nichol’s decision has real world consequences for the students who started their W&M career based on the promise of Gateway.
— Mike '92 Feb 28, 09:49 AM #
An intelligent, effective leader would have said ‘We have a great program here, let’s figure out how to fund it and make it a success.’ An ineffectual naif would say, ‘Yay, we have a program, let’s forget all those annoying details about money and whatnot and just charge on forward.’ Nichol proved that he was out of his league when he didn’t grasp that you can’t snap your fingers and make financial constraints disappear and money fall from the sky like manna. Then again, he didn’t know the difference between a severance package and a bribe, so this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
— Alum Feb 28, 04:14 PM #
“Liberals and conservatives alike have praised it.” And, as a conservative, let me praise it again. It’s needs based, which is wise and ethical. An added bonus is that it will tend to help persons of color but not in a demeaning, patronizing or racist manner – good there too. Diversity will expand at the College because of this program – more good things. Now let’s do some math: the $12,000,000 we wasted on making a few intolerant anti-Christians happy could have funded the program for three years – oops.
— owens Feb 28, 04:32 PM #
Frankly, I suspect the actual cost of Gateway has been grossly underestimated and folks are just tippytoeing around the issue for fear of being accused of being “unwelcoming”,or whatever the acceptable BS politically correct term is.
Lets do some more math, understanding that I am not privy to the real numbers.The Gateway goal is to have 600 students,out of a total undergraduate student population of 5,500 attend W&M on a tuition free basis.[I am using total cost of tuition and fees for this example]. An in state student would normally pay $9,164 per year for T&F;an out of state student would normally pay $26,934 per year for T&F.
If the 600 student slots were to be filled by OOS students W&M would generate $16,160,400 per year in income.[600 X $26,934].
If the 600 slots were flled by VA students W&M would generate $5,498,400 in income.
If we assume W&M were to follow its normal acceptance ration of 35% OOS and 65% Va students the “lost” T&E revenue to W&M would be about $9 Mill per year.
Obviously, and by design, the 600 Gateway students will generate $0 in revenue to W&M.
Thus the real cost to W&M to financially support Gateway will be somewhere between $5.5 Mill and $16.1 Mill per year [and closer to $9 Mill] in lost tuition revenue alone [per year] not even counting the cost of the extra personnel and programs that will be required to make Gateway successful.
Thus, I believe that W&M will require a dedicated endowment of at least $200 Million to properly fund Gateway.
I also believe that Nichol was criminally irresponsible beyond belief to committ W&M to this reckless course of action without “consulting” anyone and with absolutely no plan for raising the necessary funding.
Of course, the people who will suffer the most will be the Gateway students who will have their hopes dashed and the W&M community who will ultimately bear the brunt and responsibility for another stupid Nichol action.
— Jeff '62 Feb 29, 08:58 PM #
Jeff ’62 is most likely correct. Has there ever been a government program that made its initial budget projection? And, of course, once it gets going the left will blame the “heartless” & “closed-minded” conservatives for not coming up with the cash for their most worthy program. It’s a wonderful lefty world in which one gets to take credit for all the “cumbaya” moments and let everyone else pay for them. Not only pay for them, but take the blame when things go to hell!
However, that does not mean Gateway is not worth exploring if an actual adult is in charge of making it work. Nichol wasn’t one.
— owens Mar 1, 09:35 AM #
A new educational gateway is open for Virginia students. Gateway William and Mary, an innovative financial aid program, puts a quality education within the reach of all Virginians—regardless of their ability to pay.
Designed for women and men whose academic promise exceeds their economic means, the program will provide a combination of institutional, state and federal grants for low- and middle-income students who have the desire to attend a world-class university without incurring debt.
Good point on the $. But Gateway only applies to VA students.
— joe nash Mar 4, 12:46 PM #
If the true purpose behind the Gateway program is diversity, exactly how does graduating without debt help create a more diverse student body? Are not these students just as able to sign a promissory note as any other students? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the these millions to loosen lending restrictions and create more favorable repayment or forbearance terms? And if school endowment monies were used to guarantee loans, or even distributed as loans, wouldn’t that increase the funds available for subsequent students? But then again, perhaps the purpose here was more directed at making our former President headlines and political points rather than really working to increase diversity.
But Nichols does deserve some credit for proving the voracity of the old axiom that sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission. Nichols, always the politician knew that if he asked the BOV to create the program, he would have been asked a question that he couldn’t answer, “How do you propose we fund this?” Better to announce the program and then whip up the troops to vilify the BOV if they did anything other than sign on.
It really doesn’t take any transparency to see why he was shown the door now does it?
And on that issue, Nichols holds the keys to the transparency door. I don’t hear a popular uprising demanding that he execute a waiver and allow the BOV to release all the information concerning his reappointment? Then, and only then, would it be appropriate to criticize the BOV for not being transparent.
— amused mba student Mar 4, 02:18 PM #
I’d agree with you about Nichol putting the cart before the horse on Gateway, but I’m not sure what loosening lending restrictions or changing repayment terms would accomplish.
These students can already get loans if they need them. I don’t think the problem is the availability of credit – its the ability of these students or their parents to pay off the loan. Yes – more favorable repayment terms would widen the pool of students who could afford it a little, but giving them a scholarship does a much more effective job if you really want to target intelligent low income students that can’t come to the College simply because they can’t afford it.
What I think would be nice is if this were phased out in some way, more gradually – so that students who make under a certain amount will get their tuition covered by the Gateway program, and then students whose families make above that amount get a progressively smaller scholarship, but still something to defray the costs – like how they phase out the Earned Income Tax Credit.
but at least its in place now… we just need to figure out how to pay for it.
— d kuehn Mar 4, 04:50 PM #
You’d be surprised how hard it is for low-income families to get even seemingly “easy” loans for school. (I’m speaking from personal experience – it doesn’t take much at low-income to make you ineligible for private loans.) I think the problem for that stems from both the ability to obtain the loans and the ability to repay them.
I agree on your second point about the phasing of Gateway (as well as making it available to out-of-state students as well).
— Legal scholar Mar 4, 05:12 PM #
Not trying to be flippant but it seems that what you are saying is that students who graduate from W&M are unable to obtain employment sufficient for them to repay their loans? Even if we ease repayment terms? Wow, I must have badly misjudged the value of a W&M diploma.
Really, I am all for removing barriers to admission but this does not remove a barrier if as you say, there are sufficient loan resources available.
— amused mba student Mar 4, 05:35 PM #
Yes Legal Scholar, I can understand why it might be difficult for some folks to obtain loans. That is why I was suggesting that it makes a great deal more sense to use the money to either guarantee loans or make loans. There are probably a number of creative ways to utilize these monies that would have more impact for more students over a longer period than simply giving it away.
— amused mba student Mar 4, 05:45 PM #
I prefer the system of need-based scholarships and grants with merit-based requirements. The idea behind giving scholarships over making loans available is to attract low-income students to college and to reduce the barriers to a college education for such students. Barriers exist other than merely paying for college or repayment of loans: – 36% of low-income, college-qualified students complete bachelor’s degrees within 8 1/2 years, compared to 81% of high-income, college-qualified students. – Low-income high-school graduates in the top quartile of standardized test scores attend college at the same rate as high-income high school graduates achieving in the bottom quartile of standardized test scores. (Secretary’s Commission on Future of Higher Education)
Part of the idea is that, if we just make obtaining loans easier, there will be less incentive for the college-qualified low-income students to attend college than if the money were given as scholarships / grants (with no repayment). The low-income students are also less able to support themselves financially during college, unlike high-income students who can fall back on their parents / families for financial assistance. The idea is that there are qualified, serious, intelligent low-income students who have these institutional and social barriers to higher education, and rather than tell them, “Hey, here’s $40,000 a year in loans that you’ll pay back until you’re 40,” we give them conditional scholarships. Also, roughly 50% children in povert become adults in poverty; this is somewhat reduced if they achieve in higher education, but there is still a very large disparity among the SES strata. By asking the low-income, college-qualified students to take on the burden of loans instead of conditional scholarships, we would be placing another financial strain on them post-graduation (e.g., repayment of loans) that would increase their chances of again returning to poverty as an adult (which is already a high likelihood).
My 2 cents. As someone who was low-income for the entire 22 years of my life, I prefer conditional scholarships / grants over guarantee of loans.
— Senior at WM Mar 4, 07:23 PM #
*has been low-income for the past 22 years…
Other barriers exist as well. For many low-income students, the choice would be between attending college with guaranteed loans / scholarships and remaining an income-generator for their parents / household, which is not a true barrier facing the high-income SES strata. That incentive needs to be worthwhile to encourage the qualified low-income students to choose college and higher education over remaining an income generator (conditional scholarships instead of guaranteeing loans).
— Senior at WM Mar 4, 07:28 PM #
thankyou, senior –
mba – its not that they don’t get a job after graduating, but just having to pay off the loan is still a substantial barrier to taking the loan – even if they are perfectly capable of paying it off afterwards. As a senior in highschool, they’d still face a lot of uncertainty and perhaps a lot of pressure from parents to just get a job. Providing scholarships rather than more generous loans removes that pressure substantially and should raise the quality of the student body if it enables intelligent students that otherwise would not chose to go to the College to come.
— d kuehn Mar 5, 10:48 AM #
Does anyone realize that William & Mary is semi-private, not classic “public?” Do they also realize that Gateway is really an affirmative action program and that that cohort of students has lower SATs and high school GPAs than the rest of the student body (I wouldn’t believe anything Feiss says)? Has anyone looked at the attrition rate of the Gateway students? I’ll bet it’s 2-3x higher than the general student body population. I don’t think it serves anyone’s best interests for these kids to be set up to fail. Why do you think that Nichol went after the Philosophy Dept. so hard? Because they weren’t handing out enough “easy As and Bs” to Gateway students. That department is known for having the most un-inflated grading in the Humanities or “Arts” part of the school. Just a matter of time before it became a target for Nichol’s “low standards” agenda.
People like Gene Nichol never see the long term consequences or the big picture. Reminds me of Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan’s politically-influenced, monetary policy. All of this easy money in the past ten years has created a destructive stock bubble followed by a more destructive real estate bubble. Is a commodities bubble next? Education and monetary policies are definitely “weapons of mass destruction” when they get corrupted by presidential political agendas.
— MacSuile Mar 7, 01:50 PM #
Contrary to Provost Feiss’s disingenuous report, Sullivan left office with more than the ground prepared and preliminary discussions with regard to what became Gateway. The program was written by a group of Sullivan administrators which included Feiss. It was not announced by Sullivan because there was no stable source of funding. It is my understanding that Sullivan left the program for Nichol, understanding Nichol’s probable enthusiasm for such an initiative, and assuming that Nichol would do the requisite fundraising. It passes credibility that Nichol could arrive on campus on July 1 and develop such a program by August 26. The Nichol team took the program developed by the Sullivan team, provided the name but not the money, and took the credit. I am disappointed at Feiss’s lack of honesty with regard to this matter.
— alyx Mar 8, 01:00 PM #
I agree with MacSuile. Gateway is pretty much a way of ensuring that affirmative action standards are met. Still, all of these comments refer to upper and lower classes, but no one mentioned the middle class. You know, the kids who work part-time through college, and, since they aren’t low income (a whopping 10,000 a year over) they have to get loans and then pay them back until they are 40. I think since most of the school fits into this program, than the gateway money should go to helping them instead of throwing out free college educations just to raise the % minority students. People tend to forget the middle class, but there are already so many programs that hand out free money to the lower class, that I think the middle class kids deserve some help. Besides, why is it more difficult for a lower class kid to pay back a loan than a middle class kid? They will both have jobs after college…that’s kind of the whole point to going to college…learn something then enter the workforce. It seems silly to leave out the majority of students here at the college.
— k Mar 13, 05:12 PM #
I have a lot of questions about Gateway. Given the enormous resources the program will take, and the possible impact on the quality of education and the value of your diploma, you should have questions, too.
First, are the admitted Gateway students really qualified? Feiss says, of course. Professor Grayson (Government Dept) says they get a disproportionate number of Ds and Fs in his classes. Who is correct?
Next, even assuming the admitted Agetway students are qualified (and I have my doubts given Grayson’s comment), how can academic standards be assured with a quota of students in each class that need to be “Gateway students?” 150 students per class (10% of all students) is a lot. Qualified, poor students have many top schools to consider, each of which has a similar program, and better funded and endowed.
Are older transfer students with lower incomes being admitted to fill out the quota? If an applicant is 21, lives on his own and works at an entry level job, the applicant is likely earning less than $40,000 per year. Does this qualify for Gateway? Is this what the progrram was intended to accomplish?
Next, just how is Gateway supposed to necessarily improve diversity? It is based on income, right? So, a flood of poor white applicants from Appalachia or southside Virginia would qualify for the program, and if admitted, be indistinguishable from the oher, more affluent whites on campus. Right? Similarly, if blacks, hispanics, or you name it are more affluent and academically-qualified and are admitted outside of Gateway, this would improve diversity but have nothing to do with Gateway, right?
Also, is Gateway really necessary to create diversity? The College is becoming more diverse naturally, as our society becomes more diverse, and so does the qualified applicant pool. The numbers quoted by Grayson show that the College was becoming more diverse well before Gateway.
If Gateway will take a $200 million endowment, and faculty is way underpaid, if it will take millions every year to fund, and the College budget keeps getting cut by the state, given the questions about the applicants’ academic qualifications aised by Grayson, and given the over-hurried launch of the program by Nichol without any vetting by the BOV, have my questions been asked by the BOV? Academic excellence is critical to the future of the College, to the value of your degree. Diversity is great to have. It is here to stay. IT is coming whether people like it or not. But pushing it forward without a financial plan and without assurance that the academic excellence of W&M is secure, this is irresponsible.
Now that Nichol is gone, this is a good time to take a deep breath and get it right.
— Questions Abound Mar 13, 11:40 PM #
Diversity isn’t limited to racial or ethnic diversity, and low-income whites are not necessarily indistinguishable from more affluent whites, even if they’re all in-state. (I say this as a low-income white on campus with many low-income white and minority friends on campus, but not as a Gateway student – I’m out of state.)
Too often we limit the diversity to be achieved as racial or ethnic, when diversity of thoughts, backgrounds, and cultures in the environment (the ultimate end-goal for those pro-diversity) comes from a variety of sources – ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, age, gender, etc. There have been many well-written books and articles on how low-income and more affluent people of the same race are often just as different and diverse as two people of different races from the same socioeconomic class. That’s not at all to say that racial diversity is any less or any more important than socioeconomic diversity – they both have their own obstacles to higher education.
— Just a point... Mar 14, 02:10 PM #