The New Math of Financial Aid - Arian Campo-Flores, Newsweek

Institutions are in a tough bind—trying to make themselves affordable to the students they admit, yet struggling to scrounge up the necessary aid dollars from budgets they've had to pare down. Take Vanderbilt. Like many universities in recent years, it decided to replace all need-based loans with grants and scholarships. The university announced the change with fanfare in September 2008—right on the eve of the economic meltdown. Though the program suddenly became much more difficult to fund, Vanderbilt nipped and tucked all across the budget to make it work. "It scares us all," says Douglas Christiansen, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions, "but it is the right and moral thing for our institution to do."