By Will Jackson, News Correspondent
Northeastern is kicking off an array of scholarship initiatives targeted at increasing local enrollment, with a special focus on the neighborhoods of Roxbury, the South End, the Fenway, Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain. The project is referred to as the Northeastern/Neighborhood Partnership for Academic Success.
The project comes as part of a package of general mitigation efforts that the university agreed to undertake in response to its continued expansion. These commitments were negotiated as part of Northeastern’s Institutional Master Plan (IMP), a blueprint for growth that all large universities, hospitals and some other institutions in the city must submit to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Information about these initiatives was acquired from a Feb. 28 Submission Draft of the cooperation agreement between Northeastern and the BRA.
The most direct aid shown is the offering of 30 new, full-tuition, need-based scholarships, starting fall 2015. Twenty of these will be targeted specifically at the neighborhoods listed above. The other 10 are citywide. Before this deal, Northeastern was already offering 120 Boston-specific scholarships. All are expected to continue.
Northeastern’s current tuition comes to $40,780 per year. A majority of students, however, never wind up paying that amount. Department of Education data indicates that 67 percent of Northeastern students receive some sort of grant, and that the average grant allotment is a little over $14,000 a year. Even with this mitigation, however, this amount is burdensome for lower income families.
“I think drawing in local talent that might not be able to afford it [otherwise] really should be a goal of the university,” said Samantha Genardi, a senior biochemistry major, said. She stressed however, that she believed the process had to respect current academic standards. “The people we get should be here because of their ability, not because of where they’re from.”
The partnership will offer smaller plans for Boston Public School students as well.
Effective fall 2015, Northeastern will offer financial aid covering 100 percent of demonstrated need for students applying from impacted neighborhoods. Demonstrated financial need is the difference between a university’s expected cost of attendance and a family’s expected financial contribution, as computed by the Free Application For Student Aid (FAFSA).
The plan also lays out several measures aimed at facilitating admission to the university. Beginning this semester, students from the listed neighborhoods will have priority status for entrance to Foundation Year, a College of Professional Studies program set up to give Boston students a supportive environment in which to complete their first year. Credits earned in Foundation Year can either be used to continue study at CPS or apply to another college on campus.
Furthermore, BPS students not accepted through Foundation Year or another undergraduate program will be allowed to negotiate a contract with an admissions counselor that guarantees transfer admission, provided they hit certain academic benchmarks at any accredited institution.
In addition to these transfer contracts, Northeastern has begun transfer articulation agreement negotiations with Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College. Once settled, those agreements will specify how credits from either of these institutions will count towards completion of specific degree programs at Northeastern. They will “provide another route for BPS graduates from those neighborhoods to enter Northeastern,” according to the agreement.
Not only is this an alternate route to eventual admission into Northeastern, it is a highly cost effective one. As previously mentioned, tuition at Northeastern comes out to $40,780. According to the BHCC website, a full year of attendance with all costs including room and board added in tallies up to $11,984.
Erica Duran, a fourth year civil and environmental engineering major, expressed support for the goals of the project, but also had some reservations related to the admissions changes.
“I’m concerned that if the program isn’t competitive enough it may have an adverse affect on high school motivation for BPS students,” she said. “They might see the transfer contracts and Foundation Year as a fallback.”
