(Gabi Ricciardi • The Student Life)
More than 200 Claremont McKenna College community members — including students, faculty, staff, administrators and members of CMC’s Board of Trustees — gathered at Freeberg Forum on Nov. 6 to discuss the college’s financial aid and accessibility. Student organizers said they aimed to encourage conversation about CMC’s affordability after recent declines in the college’s provision of need-based financial aid.
CMC’s common data set indicates that in last spring’s admission cycle, the college admitted its lowest percentage of students on need-based financial aid in over a dozen years, while the cost of tuition has steadily increased. Forum organizers Oscar Ponteri CM ’27 and Shiraz Smith CM ’27 told TSL that these statistics, alongside seeing their peers have to take on more loans each year to attend CMC, was their primary motivation behind hosting the financial aid forum.
“If this school is meant to be what it can be, we need to act on this pressing issue, which is that we’re not investing enough money into financial aid, and that’s having downstream effects on the quality of the education at CMC,” Smith said.
The forum opened with a panel of three students who receive need-based financial aid, a student moderator and Jennifer Taw, a CMC professor of government and international relations who has been involved in advocating for more extensive financial aid at the college. Panelists spoke about how a lack of need-based financial aid limits diversity in the student body and hinders low-income students from getting the most out of their college experiences.
Panelist Hailey Stuben CM ’27 said during the forum that she has had to negotiate her aid package every year and that her expenses are on her mind all the time.
Stuben also expressed gratitude, however, for the “incredible successes and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities” she’s enjoyed with CMC’s financial aid support, such as research endeavors. She said experiences like this are why she plans to continue advocating for better financial aid packages for future students.
Taw noted that if CMC’s financial aid packages fail to compete with packages offered by other higher education institutions, the college will lose out on attracting the strongest student body it can.
“We want the best students at CMC, and the best students aren’t always from families that can afford to pay the entire tuition — often, the best students are going to be coming from lower income families and families with fewer means,” Taw said. “If we don’t compete with the other schools in terms of the financial aid package we offer, we’re just gonna miss out on the opportunity to further enrich our student body in the school as a whole.”
Following introductory statements, the forum then opened up to allow all attendees to share their thoughts; multiple students raised concerns about how diversity is reduced when higher education institutions are not accessible.
Jordan Arroyo Cruz CM ’28 said he felt a lack of socioeconomic diversity during a class discussion on redlining and poverty. Arroyo Cruz said he was the only student in the class who had personally experienced the issues being discussed.
“I’m really happy I [was] in the room and [could] provide the voice to share my experience from an anecdotal perspective,” Arroyo Cruz said. “But I was the only one.”
Malu Junco CM ’27, who receives financial aid, said that there is dissonance between CMC’s mission statement and the college’s lack of financial aid.
“How are we raising responsible leaders, if the people who can exchange ideas are not here because they’re facing financial situations?” she said.
Junco added that although she technically receives need-based, full financial aid, she has had to take on multiple on-campus jobs to pay the “hidden” costs of attending CMC, including for her health insurance and textbooks.
Brandon Delcid Rios CM ’30, a QuestBridge scholar at CMC, echoed Junco’s sentiment about unexpected costs. He also said he has heard peers on need-based financial aid express concerns that they may have to transfer out of CMC because they cannot keep up with rising tuition and expense costs.
“I know some people who have talked to me in just the last week about having to maybe transfer out of CMC because they don’t have money,” he said. “Their accounts are on hold. They can’t register for classes soon because they have unpaid dues.”
Both Ponteri and Smith said college administrators told them they agree that investing in financial aid is crucial, including CMC President William Dudley, who has emphasized in speeches and an interview with TSL that affordability is one of his top priorities.
“Everyone agrees with more financial aid funding,” Ponteri said. “I hope that our staff, our admin, our trustees that were here today saw our testimony. We hope to see action.”