Williams College moves to grant-only financial aid

“The new program is a crucial step in our quest for what we are starting to call ‘true affordability’ — a program that encompasses the costs of both attendance and full and equal participation,” Maud Mandel, the college’s president, wrote in a letter to students. “The new program extends that commitment to opportunity, by clearing obstacles and freeing students to make the most of your education.”

The financial aid application process for students and their families will remain the same, administrators said. Students and families will still fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and College Scholarship Service Profile, more commonly known as the FAFSA and CSS Profile, and can apply for private scholarships to cover their tuition costs.

The sticker price for attending Williams College next year will be $74,660, including room, board, and fees. The college pays for all textbooks and other course materials for any students receiving financial aid, a program that began in the 1920s.

Almost 53 percent of the college’s 2,121 students receive financial aid from the school, administrators said in a statement. The college will cover an estimated $6.75 million a year in new grants, making its new financial aid budget about $77.5 million a year. The money will come from the college’s $4.2 billion endowment, which grew a notable 49.9 percent in 2021; alumni gifts and other donations; and tuition.

Students who want to work on campus can still do so, and college administrators expect that many of them will, said Liz Creighton, Williams College’s dean of admission and student financial services. Instead of getting a break on their tuition, they will get regular paychecks to use for bills, savings, or anything else they please.

Creighton she’s seen students meet the news with “unanimous excitement and enthusiasm.”

“There’s one dollar figure that they need to be aware of, and they’re not trying to balance this complex mix of grants and loans and work requirements,” she said, adding that very little about the college process is straightforward. “We haven’t received a lot of questions, and a lot of that, I think, has to do with the simplicity of the message.”

Americans carry about $1.747 trillion in student debt, according to an estimate from the Education Data Initiative. About 43.4 million people carry some student debt, with an average balance of $40,904, including federal and private loans. A movement calling on President Biden to cancel existing federal student debt — or some amount of it — has gained more traction, with legislators such as Representative Ayanna Pressley of Boston and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts calling for loan forgiveness.

Whitney Barkley-Denney, senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending, a North Carolina-based nonprofit that researches predatory lending, said she was glad to see Williams College work toward addressing the issue.

The loans the college is eliminating, meant to cover the gap between federal aid and the cost of attendance, have been used in predatory ways by for-profit colleges, she said, and even nonprofit institutions sometimes hold unpaid loans over students’ heads by withholding transcripts until they are paid.

Eliminating such loans is a step in the right direction, Barkley-Denney said, allowing more people to go into their chosen fields — as doctors, social workers, teachers, or engineers — without massive debt burdens.

“That’s exactly where we would like to see things going, moving from education that should be debt financed to education that is seen as a public good,” Barkley-Denney said. “We would certainly rather see grant programs than anything else. That would be our first choice.”

Spencer B. Huang, a sophomore at Williams, said he heard of the change from the student newspaper, the Williams Record.

“I was very happy to hear the news, considering that financial constraints may be a large reason why high school students in general choose particular universities or even decide to go to college in the first place,” Huang said. “I had always known that Williams had been generous with their financial aid policies — such as need-blind admissions — and this change in policy certainly reflects the college’s devotion to making Williams attainable to all who have the merits to get in.”

He also noted another potential impact.

“I presume that we will have a more diverse student body than ever before, which is an exciting thought,” Huang said.

Gal Tziperman Lotan is a former Globe staff member.