This is a two-part series on Admissions and Financial Aid. Part I covers standardized testing in Admissions and Part II will cover Cornell’s financial aid capacity. Both affect Cornell’s ability to attract new students.
As the May 1 deadline approaches for accepted students to declare that they will attend Cornell, students accepted at other Ivy League schools must judge which schools can offer the best financial aid package.
Because Cornell has both the lowest total endowment per student in the Ivy League and the lowest scholarship endowment per student, it will be more difficult to compete for out of state students. The one notable exception is that the in-state tuition at Cornell’s four statutory colleges are much lower, as a result of a subsidy received from SUNY’s annual budget appropriation.
Cornell pioneered the concept of a “no loan” financial aid package, and current Cornell students with family incomes of $60,000 or less can graduate without any student loans. The “Family Income Cap” column below represents this cut off. For most schools this is the minimum family income where the family must contribute to the package.
So, what do Cornell’s peer institutions, with smaller enrollments and bigger endowments, offer?
| Name | Total Endowment per student | Financial Aid | Family Income Cap |
| Endowment 6/30/23 | |||
| Princeton | $3,832,426.46 | $5,875,000,000 | $100,000 |
| Yale University | $2,781,928.04 | $7,326,000,000 | $75,000 |
| Harvard University | $2,032,820.27 | $10,149,800,000 | $85,000 |
| Dartmouth College | $1,175,878.56 | $1,926,258,000 | $125,000 |
| Penn | $834,978.31 | $3,360,000,000 | $75,000 |
| Brown University | $582,294.27 | $2,046,000,000 | $125,000 |
| Columbia | $447,066.03 | $3,273,600,000 | $66,000 |
| Cornell University | $368,615.52 | $2,621,279,000 | $60,000 |
Harvard’s annual report elaborates: “Harvard College raised the income threshold for cost-free attendance to $85,000, allowing an estimated 25% of undergraduate students to attend for free.” Harvard’s financial aid endowment is larger than Cornell’s total endowment.
Using the MyTuition Cost Calculator (for academic year 2023-24), assuming one child in a two-parent New York household, a $100,000 family annual income, a $100,000 house and a $50,000 home mortgage, the financial aid packages are projected to be:
| Name | Student Loan | Family Contribution | Student Employment | Grant |
| Dartmouth | $0 | $1,000 | $2,500 | $84,300 |
| Yale | $0 | $9,200 | $2,100 | $76,400 |
| Harvard | $0 | $3,200 | $3,500 | $74,000 |
| Brown | $0` | $13,600 | $2,950 | $71,050 |
| Cornell | $2,000 | $10,700 | $5,000 | $70,500 |
| Penn | $0 | $15,500 | $3,500 | $69,900 |
| Columbia | $0 | $12,600 | $3,100 | $69,500 |
Sometimes a single large donation can make a dramatic difference in a University’s financial aid program. For example, John McMullen was President and Co-founder of the Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Dredging Company. In 1921, he left about $1 million of his stock in that company to establish Engineering scholarships at Cornell. (This is $17.4 million in 2024 dollars.) The proceeds from the dividends and sale of that stock has resulted in a very large scholarship endowment for the College of Engineering.
At Harvard, Ken Griffin donated $125 million in 2014 for scholarships, which have made a major difference in Harvard’s ability to offer generous financial aid packages. It was the largest gift in Harvard’s history.
At Dartmouth in 2024, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt left $150 million for scholarships.
In spring 2024, Ruth Gottesman donated $1 billion to the Albert Einstein Medical School so that the school will be tuition free in the future.
Although Cornell continues to solicit $500 million for undergraduate scholarship endowments as a part of its To Do the Greatest Good Campaign, absent another such major gift, it will be difficult for Cornell to compete with Harvard and other Ivies in offering “no loan” generous financial aid packages.
Although Cornell no longer consults with other schools in designing the formula for its financial aid packages due to antitrust concerns, if a student is deciding between Cornell and another Ivy League school, Cornell has been known to match competing offers.
It appears that Cornell is doing as much as possible to attract admitted students to enroll given its limited resources. Perhaps the critics of Cornell financial aid should ask whether the campus climate that they are creating will attract or repel the donors needed to expand Cornell’s financial aid.
