As the endowment tumbled by 27 percent, University officials vowed to maintain Stanford’s current financial aid system. Lesser known, however, was their promise to uphold the same policies for international students on financial aid.
According to Director of Financial Aid Karen Cooper, the University will uphold the same pledge in financial aid security to international students, who comprise approximately seven percent of the total undergraduate population.
The actual percentage of international students on aid is nearly half that of the total undergrads — approximately 25 percent of international students receive need-based aid directly from the University, compared to 48 percent of all undergraduates.
Resident vs. Nonresident Aid
The difference in financial aid distribution results from the lack of a need-blind admissions policy for international students.
Unlike for students holding U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident status, admission officers must consider an international student’s ability to pay when making admission decisions.
According to Cooper, international students must indicate during the admissions process whether or not they will be applying for aid.
“If international students do not apply for aid at the time of admission, they do so with the understanding that they will not be considered for assistance from the University throughout their undergraduate career,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Yet once international students do decide to apply for aid, they provide family financial data to the University, much as domestic students do.
According to the University’s financial aid Web site, both groups must fill out the CSS Profile when applying for aid. And while domestic students submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), international students submit the International Student Certification of Finances in the FAFSA’s place.
“We [then] attempt to make a similar analysis of the student’s family’s financial strength in order to determine eligibility for aid as we do with domestic students,” Cooper said.
Increasing Aid Numbers
Due to increased funding and donations over the past several years, the University has been able to admit an increasing number of international students with financial need.
“Over the last five to 10 years, we have steadily been increasing the number of international students admitted with aid eligibility each year, as funding from our very generous donors has increased for this purpose,” Cooper said.
While the University financial budget has swelled 85 percent since the 2005-06 academic year — the amount of total aid increased from $60.8 million to $112.5 million — the amount of institutional aid awarded to international students has also seen a 64 percent increase, from $5.5 million to $9.1 million, over this four-year period.
And just as it does with domestic students, the University relies on a combination of the endowment income, annual gift funds (The Stanford Fund) and general University funds to provide aid to international students who have demonstrated need.
One key difference in funding, however, is that the University does not receive any federal or state grant funds to pay for international student aid.
”Checking the Box”
Director of Admission Shawn Abbott maintained that the admissions process is not much different for international students than it is for domestic students.
“They still move through the same exact evaluation and selection process as all students,” Abbott wrote in an e-mail to The Daily, although he acknowledged that it is more competitive for international students who need aid to be admitted.
Many international applicants therefore do not apply for aid out of fear that it will affect their chances of admission into the University.
“With the need-blind financial aid, I would probably be somewhat unwilling to check that box [requesting aid] because I feel that might affect my admission,” said Fon Kulalert ’12, who attends Stanford on a Thai government scholarship. “I would think that as an international student, I would have to be super extraordinary for top American schools, like Stanford, to accept me and even pay for me to come here.”
Similarly, Kin Fucharoen ’12, who is on scholarship from the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, an air traffic service provider for Thailand’s airspace, believes that his admission would have been affected had he requested aid.
“Given that Stanford cannot be need-blind for international students,” he said, “I would have felt reluctant to check the box requesting the aid because I would have felt that my application did not stand out enough for the admissions team to ignore my financial background.”
However, Pak Hin Lee ’12, an international student from Hong Kong, chose to apply for aid due to his financial need, even though he understood that his decision would increase the competition he faced in the applicant pool.
“It wasn’t at all a hard decision for me to apply for aid — even though I knew it would affect my admission — because it was basically impossible for my family to afford my studies here without any forms of aid or scholarship,” Lee said. “I was fortunate enough to be admitted, and Stanford guaranteed to provide me with financial aid that would meet my need.”
Strings Attached
International students who did not apply for University-funded financial aid, meanwhile, pay their University bill one of two ways: through outside scholarships or out of their own expenses.
Kulalert and Fucharoen had the privilege of receiving full scholarships from the Thai government, which allowed them to pay for Stanford without worrying about the financial aid application.
Many of the scholarships available for international students, however, come with constraints.
Although Kulalert’s scholarship covers her undergraduate and postgraduate tuition in full, she is required to return to Thailand for the same amount of time spent studying abroad. Likewise, Fucharoen had his major predetermined and must work at least 14 years for his sponsor.
Despite the many conditions of his contract, Fucharoen maintains that he may have abandoned the opportunity to leave Thailand for college if he did not have the scholarship, as the cost of attending Stanford is roughly six to seven times that of Thai universities.
“Some people may think 14 years is a lot, but I like [the] aviation industry, so getting to work in the air traffic service sector is more than I can ask for, hence I’m really happy with this deal,” Fucharoen said.
“Again, some people don’t like the life-bonding contract, but I think it’s a very good deal as long as you choose to apply for the sponsor that you really want to work for,” he added.
Other students in the international community rely on their parents to fund their education or find work to pay their own way through school.
“My parents paid for my tuition — actually, my mom pays the bulk of it,” said Shine Zaw-Aung ’11.
Some students also work while at Stanford.
“Many of us find various on-campus jobs to relieve the burden on living expenses,” Lee added. “After all, sometimes we may want to eat outside or watch a movie, and those cost money.”
What the Future Holds
Although Martha Trujillo, director of financial aid for the School of Medicine, indicated that the medical school had once discussed extending its need-blind financial aid policy to include international students, both she and Cooper cited the fallen endowment and current economic state as reasons why the University cannot do so at this time.
“There are no immediate plans to extend our need-blind admission policies to international students,” Cooper said. “The cost is prohibitive at this time.”