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Dive Transient:
- Bennington School, a small nonprofit establishment in Vermont, rolled out a brand new no-loan program for the state’s residents Wednesday.
- The school will meet as much as the complete demonstrated want for first-year college students and switch college students who’re Vermont residents, it mentioned in a information launch. Meaning it should cowl tuition, charges, room and board with sources of economic assist aside from scholar loans.
- Eligible undergraduates can obtain kinds of assist together with institutional need-based assist, benefit scholarships, state grants, federal grants and scholar employment.
Dive Perception:
Bennington officers solid this system as the primary of its form at a non-public establishment in Vermont. The purpose is to draw extra in-state college students.
Simply 2% of the faculty’s undergraduates got here from Vermont final yr, in accordance with federal knowledge. One other 16% got here from outdoors the U.S., leaving 82% coming from different states.
Bennington’s enrollment fluctuated through the pandemic and within the years main as much as it. It enrolled 851 college students in 2017. Enrollment fell to 799 college students in fall 2020 earlier than rising once more to 884 final fall.
The school’s no-loan program joins a number of different affordability initiatives establishments have launched lately amid intense scrutiny of school prices and scholar mortgage debt. In Vermont, a number of public faculties — Castleton College, Northern Vermont College and Vermont Technical School — will lower tuition subsequent yr once they merge to type a brand new establishment, Vermont State College.
Rich nonprofit establishments in numerous states have additionally promoted affordability efforts. In June, Dartmouth School mentioned it was changing undergraduate loans with scholarships. In April, Williams School lower mortgage and work necessities from its monetary assist packages. In Could, Whitman School mentioned it should meet full demonstrated monetary want for in-state college students beginning subsequent yr.
However Bennington is a a lot much less rich establishment. Whereas Dartmouth and Williams measure their endowment values within the billions, and Whitman’s was price some $800 million final yr, Bennington’s endowment was valued at $40.2 million in 2021, in accordance with its audited monetary statements.
College students who qualify for the brand new program will nonetheless be capable of borrow for school. Bennington mentioned they’ll take out federal scholar loans to cowl prices they incur on high of tuition, charges, room and board. Or they might borrow to cowl the quantity their households are anticipated to contribute to their school schooling.
“We’re enthusiastic about this vital step in direction of making the Bennington School expertise extra attainable and reasonably priced for all eligible college students and their households all through Vermont,” the faculty’s president, Laura Walker, mentioned in a press release.
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