Yale students arrested during sit-in protest over financial aid

Yale University students occupy the waiting area of the Yale University Financial Aid office in New Haven Monday. Yale University students occupy the waiting area of the Yale University Financial Aid office in New Haven Monday. Photo: Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Yale students arrested during sit-in protest over financial aid 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

NEW HAVEN — Approximately 20 Yale University students were arrested after they refused to leave the financial aid offices during a rally Monday as they demanded Yale remove what they describe as a financial burden for its low-income students on financial aid.

The students were given citations for simple trespassing while approximately 50 people in total gathered outside in support to protest Yale’s policy that requires students on financial aid to make a monetary contribution totaling thousands of dollars even if they’re given a full ride, organizers said.

This requirement is called the Student Effort and consists of student employment and a summer income contribution. Only students receiving financial aid need to make the contribution, which can range from $2,800 to $3,350 in student employment for upper-level students. Adding the summer income contribution, upper-level students are required to pay close to $6,000 a year for the total Student Effort.

Currently more than half of undergraduate Yale students received a need-based Yale scholarship, according to Yale University spokesman Tom Conroy.

A statement by Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan on Yale’s financial aid web page reads, “If you get into Yale, we feel sure that cost will not be a barrier in your decision to attend.”

Many students who received financial aid said cost may not prevent them from attending, but it prevents them from fully participating in the Yale experience.

An international student from Pakistan, Shaheer Malik was promised a full scholarship to attend Yale, but he’s still required to meet the Student Effort requirement, he said.

“I was promised my family’s financial situation would not prevent me from accessing all the amazing things that Yale offers, but when I got here I realized that wasn’t the case,” Malik said. He said the requirement targets the poorest students under the hardest financial circumstances receiving financial aid.

“For me it has meant working 10, maybe more, hours shelving books at the library when I should be writing a piece or studying for an exam, shelving the books my peers will use to study and enjoy the Yale experience while I scan bar-codes,” he said.

Having to work while in school to make the financial contribution means he isn’t able to engage in the social activities that Yale promises as part of the university experience, he said.

“If I couldn’t pay, Yale wouldn’t spare a second thought about kicking me out, not just of the university, but of the country,” he said. “It adds this extra division of, ‘You’re not welcome here, you’re not part of the same Yale experience that the wealthy people are able to access.’”

The university’s need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid “ensure that a Yale education is affordable for everyone, regardless of family background, citizenship, or immigration status,” according to the financial aid web page. The university meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need for all admitted students and “families who make $65,000 or less have to make no contribution to the cost of a Yale College education,” Conroy said. The university does not include loans in its financial aid packages, but students may take out loans to cover the Student Effort contribution.

Students said the financial packages that Yale offers are deceiving. Even if the “expected family contribution” is nothing, meaning that the university has determined the family cannot afford to pay for school, a student still needs to contribute to their education.

Working comes at the cost of missing out on many social activities, student David Diaz said, and creates a divide between students who need to work and make the contribution and those who don’t. It creates a campus environment that allows wealthy students to enjoy the full Yale experience while low-income students may miss out because they need to hold a job.

“Yale has already determined they cannot afford (to pay), but I still need to,” Diaz said. “To say that my family can’t afford it but I should pay it doesn’t make sense.”

“Yale invests in it students through significant financial aid. But, like all of our peers, we also ask that students and families invest in this education as well,” Conroy said in an email. “The opportunity for a student to work during the summer and contribute to the funding of his or her education is considered part of this investment — a resource a family has available to help meet its contribution to a student’s education.”

The contribution also “allows Yale to sustain other important needs of the institution and to offer more financial aid to more students,” he said. “Yale spent $130 million this year on scholarship aid for Yale College students, which included average need based scholarships of $43,650 to students on aid. Endowment income supported just over the half of the institutional scholarships given to undergraduates. ... In order to sustain aid while meeting the other critical needs of the University, Yale needs to ask the contribution of undergraduates and families, contributions that leave a vast majority of students without debt when they graduate.”

If Yale eliminated the required contribution, the university may need to end its need-blind admissions policy and it “would compromise other aspects of the institution,” Conroy said.

Hannah Lee said she didn’t realize how much time having a job in the lab would take away from her academics when she got campus. She was emotionally and physically exhausted trying to hold a job during finals week last year and it cut into her study time and her sleep, she said. Lee was “terrified” of losing her job, because it could mean she wouldn’t have the resources to stay on campus, she said.

Lee, who had a full ride her first year at Yale, said, “When you see that zero you think Yale is really welcoming and then to come to campus and find out something else.”

mdignan@hearstmediact.com