According to a recent article by the U.S. News and World Report, the annual tuition cost of attending a private college in the United States has risen about 41 percent since 2005, after accounting for inflation. Costs for public university students also rose by about 45 percent for in-state and 32 percent for out-of-state students.
In today’s climate, scholarships and financial aid matter more than ever. Neal Jacobsen, a sophomore studying computer electrical engineering, says scholarships and financial aid played a “very big role” in his decision to come to Calvin.
“Calvin’s a great school for engineering,” Jacobsen said, but added that “if you just look at the price without scholarships… other schools that offer the same programs are a lot cheaper.” For Jacobsen, scholarships made the cost of attending Calvin similar to that of Grand Valley State University, the other school he was considering.
Jacobsen isn’t alone. Every student Chimes spoke with for this story mentioned scholarships and financial aid as being in at least the top two factors that led them to choose Calvin. Most students echoed a similar story, where other schools’ sticker prices had initially seemed lower, but Calvin offered a stronger aid package.
“The other schools I was looking at… they were good, but they didn’t offer the same level of support Calvin did,” junior Annika Wilson said. “I think it’s important because some people don’t have the money to go to college without scholarships,” Wilson told Chimes. “Even if you do, no one wants to start their life with a ton of debt.”
Calvin’s website says that 100 percent of new undergraduate students receive financial aid. According to publicly available financial reports, Calvin gave out more than $66 million in institutional aid during the 2024 fiscal year. “Scholarships and financial aid are an essential part of Calvin’s mission to equip students with an outstanding education,” James Koeman, director of financial aid, told Chimes in an email. The university designs its aid packages to help students get “the best possible value for their investment,” Koeman explained.
In line with a nationwide trend, that aid is growing. In 2016, Calvin gave back about $47.2 million — approximately 40 percent of its tuition revenue — as financial aid. In 2024, the $66 million in institutional aid represented about 58 percent of tuition revenue.
This trend holds true broadly at universities across the country. In fact, a 2024 report by Brookings, a policy research institute, suggested that even though college sticker prices have risen by 114 percent on average since 1993, students today pay nearly the same amount as they did decades earlier after factoring in aid.
In higher education jargon, the percentage of overall tuition revenue that’s redistributed outward in the form of institutional aid is known as the “discount rate.” The discount rate also includes aid from other sources, such as state or federal grants. As the discount rate has slowly climbed over the past several years, the net tuition revenue per student has fallen.
In the midst of Calvin’s ongoing attempts to align actual and planned spending, the rising discount rate has been a frequent point of contention. Calvin doesn’t have control over all the elements of the discount rate, and therefore has to be careful with the portions of aid they can influence. Koeman called the market for higher education “increasingly competitive” and told Chimes that “institutions across the country are offering more aggressive scholarship packages to attract students.”
“It’s a very delicate balancing act,“ Koeman told Chimes. At the current moment, Koeman said, Calvin’s financial aid strategy is designed with the goal of “continually monitoring and evaluating how best to allocate our limited resources.”
Another new challenge for the future of scholarships and college affordability has come as a result of the recent uproar around DEI policies. On March 12, the Equal Protection Project (EPP), part of a group calling itself the “Legal Insurrection Foundation” filed a complaint with the Department of Education that alleged that 65 of Calvin’s named scholarships were discriminatory “based on race, color, national origin and/or sex.”
Calvin isn’t alone in being challenged. So far, the EPP has challenged 60 colleges and universities and has caused the termination of discriminatory eligibility criteria for programs of 20 of these schools. At Calvin, scholarships that caught the attention of the EPP include the Endurance Scholarship, which is for African-American students who are U.S. citizens; the Trans-Racial Adoptee Scholarship, which is for “trans-racially adopted” students; and the Carol L. Faber Math Scholarship, which gives preference to female students.
According to John Walcott, professor of education at Calvin, the recent challenges to scholarships for minorities at Calvin and other universities are the result of a few different political events. In 2023, the Supreme Court, ruling on the case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, ended the use of race in college admissions.
Some critics, such as the EPP, are now attempting to apply this ruling more broadly to challenge other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, such as racial sensitivity training and diversity scholarships. “They’re trying to take that one case and apply it more broadly so they can attack things like DEI initiatives in K-12 schools and universities,” said Walcott.
Another factor, according to Walcott, is the Trump presidency. “It comes right on the heels of executive orders trying to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion. It also follows the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter sent to schools and universities, saying they need to get rid of any reference to diversity equity inclusion initiatives.”
“If the election had turned out differently, there wouldn’t be a sense that this would go anywhere,” said Walcott.
Walcott believes that EPP’s efforts to challenge DEI programs are based on “an inappropriate interpretation” of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which addressed admissions decisions, and not general institutional policies.
Christie Ra, a senior, has been a recipient of Calvin’s Mosaic Scholarship, which is awarded to “incoming international students, students with significant cross-cultural experience or domestic BIPOC students.”
Ra says she appreciates the peace of mind that scholarships and financial aid have brought her during her time at Calvin. “I think Calvin’s help in making financial aid as consistent as possible was what definitely kept me here… they made me want to come back without having to stress too much about having to make up money I didn’t have to previously.” Ra said.
While the Mosaic Scholarship wasn’t named in that complaint, the future of scholarships like it is potentially under threat.
“I did have changes in my scholarships throughout the years,” Ra told Chimes, “But Calvin was able to match the difference so that what I was paying out of pocket was consistent, and that was helpful.”
Nana Kojo Frimpong, a sophomore, has received the Mosaic Scholarship, as well as the Entrada Award for completing the Entrada Scholars Program. “Scholarships are a very important thing… some people have academic abilities, some people have certain passions, but sometimes finances are a struggle for people, which the school needs to always consider,” Frimpong said.
The Equal Protection Project complaint prompted a swift response from Calvin’s administration, with university president Greg Elzinga sending an email to the Calvin community on March 13. “The bottom line is that we remain committed to living out our sincerely held religious conviction that the biblical vision for the kingdom of God includes people ‘from every tribe and language and people and nation,’” Elzinga wrote.
