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WHY IT MATTERS
WHY IT MATTERS
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WHY DO YOU TALK SO MUCH ABOUT
ACCESS?
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EARLIER THIS YEAR I WAS ONE OF THE UNIVERSITY PRES-
IDENTS INVITED TO A HIGHER-EDUCATION SUMMIT AT THE
WHITE HOUSE.
President Obama urged us, along with leaders of major businesses
and foundations, to work together to improve access and opportunity. He and Mrs. Obama
shared personal stories of how education transformed their own lives. They challenged
us to enable more low-income students to experience similar transformations, and we
agreed to increase our efforts.
The unfortunate truth is that a young person born into the lowest economic quartile
of our society—the bottom 25 percent—has only a 9 percent chance of earning a college de-
gree. By contrast, a child born into the top economic quartile has an 80 to 90 percent like-
lihood of graduating from college. That disparity represents both a human and a national
tragedy. Skidmore College is committed to doing its part to remedy this situation.
The reasons for our commitment are clear. If a Skidmore education were available
only to those who could afford it, we would have a much less diverse student body, and we
would not be helping to increase opportunity and social mobility for everyone willing to
work hard to achieve it. That’s the reason we have more than doubled our need-based fi-
nancial aid in my time as president. It’swhywecontinue to seekout studentswhoare strivers,
who have the ability and desire, but not necessarily the financial means or opportunities, to
develop and realize their talents.
Today 44 percent of our students benefit from scholarships. In the future, extending
such assistance to an even broader segment of the Skidmore student body—ideally, to tal-
ented students from middle-class backgrounds whose families are particularly challenged
to meet college expenses—will remain one of our highest priorities and will require us to
find new resources for expanding financial aid.
But we also need to shift the national conversation about the cost of higher education
back to one focused on investment in the future. Consider one of the greatest periods of eco-
nomicexpansion inAmericanhistory: the1950s.Thatdecade’seconomicprogresswas fueled
by education. Veterans returned from World War II and went to college in unprecedented
numbers—many of them financed by a massive federal assistance program, the GI Bill. This
newgenerationofcollegegraduatesbecame thedrivingengine foraperiodofunprecedented
economic growth. Near the end of that decade, when the Space Race heated up, we poured
even more resources into science and technology education, and we are still reaping the div-
idends of those investments. But we are failing to make new ones.
Competitor nations are directing substantial new resources toward their upcoming
generations of students. They’ve seen what the U.S. accomplished by making higher edu-
cation a priority, and they want similar results. If we are to prevail on this highly charged
global playing field, we must reinvest in our nation’s future. That means a better education
for all of our citizens.
