It's important that Notre Dame recognize the financial burden many of its students and families endure to get their degrees. Those families in the middle class are most at stress. Student loan debt has tripled in the U.S in the last decade.
The
total annual cost to attend ND for a year is $64,775 with an average of $37,300 given for first year students "demonstrating financial need" at Notre Dame. Now I don't know how much family income limits are considered "financial need". But the math for an average student demonstrating that need would amount to $27,475 per year or almost $110,000 for four years. The squeeze is on middle class families with multiple children to have one attend Notre Dame. An ND education should not be for rich or the low income families.
Stanford says that 77 percent of undergraduates leave without student debt with similar annual costs for attendance. I don't know what percentage of Notre Dame students graduate without student debt. The average debt for graduating students for all colleges in the U.S. is $27,900. Stanford has a student population of just over 16,000. Notre Dame's student population is just over 14,000.
Harvard's student profile, as an example, shows that 56% of its students come from families earning over $125,000 a year. That is the limit Stanford has established for free tuition with the requirement that the student must contribute with a campus job for $5,000.
Notre Dame has the tenth highest endowment in the nation at $8 billion (Stanford's is third at $21 billion). ND's bond liability is only $890 million.
As the Provost of Stanford said,
ND gives over $30 million annually to need-based students. It does a lot in that regard. Notre Dame financial situation should assist more for families who are not making over $125,000 a year to attract high-achievement, talented, dedicated and qualified students who would like to come to Notre Dame but can't afford it and are not getting an athletic scholarship with all it covers plus the cost of attendance. That's all I am saying.
