Attending one of the most expensive colleges in the nation, most Dartmouth students should understand that many households struggle to afford the forty thousand dollar a year tuition. The task is particularly difficult for middle- to low-income families.

Recently, Harvard announced that it will not expect families earning less than $60,000 a year—up from $40,000 a year—to contribute to children’s tuition. The University’s new financial aid policy is the latest movement in what the New York Times has begun to call the “financial aid arms race.” For the past few years, several of the nation’s top colleges, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, M.I.T. and Stanford, have competed for students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds by increasing the amount and variety of financial aid packages available to students. While such a move may encourage those from low- and middle-income families to apply to expensive schools, it may cause schools to forget that the true purpose of the extension of financial aid should be to offer equal opportunities to all students on economic grounds.

Though it is still not as powerful as other factors such as race, socioeconomic background is an emerging dimension of campus “diversity” that many of America’s colleges have boasted in recent years. The trend of extending aid is an indication that the top-ranked colleges and universities are making efforts to become more accessible to middle- and low-income families. Considering that the U.S. prides itself in offering equal opportunities to all (if only on the surface), it’s about time that its best colleges begin assisting middle-class students whose families couldn’t afford the costs even with previous financial aid packages.

Socioeconomic status is just as important a factor of diversity as race and religious background. Many middle-class families are certainly not sending their kids to expensive schools with ease. Families who are struggling are not receiving aid while others are. Relaxing financial aid policies will help the Ivy Leagues improve the popular notion that they are not, on financial terms, readily accessible to those who are neither rich enough to pay their own way, nor poor enough to qualify for financial aid.

However, we must not be misled into believing that the cost for attending these schools is becoming cheaper for everyone. Overall, college tuitions are rising. Here at Dartmouth, next year’s tuition will be $1,536 (4.8%) higher compared to this year—raising the total costs to $43,341. The national median income in 2004 was about $44,000. This means attending Dartmouth for a year would completely absorb one’s yearly salary! This figure is certainly not remotely affordable to everyone in this country. Even while taking financial assistance into account, there still will be a class of people who feel deterred to attend because of economic grounds.

Furthermore, extensions of financial aid policies are not necessarily the most effective solutions in creating equal opportunities for applicants with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Many households qualifying for Harvard’s new financial aid policy are part of the upper-middle class. Tuition and other costs are increasingly difficult to afford even for the upper end of the middle-class without financial assistance. Though Ivy Leagues and other top colleges are extending their support to those who do not have the financial means to pay for the daunting bills on their own, are they not becoming increasingly exclusive on economic grounds if they are less affordable for people who earn more money?

There is no doubt that the extension of financial aid to middle-class students is a wonderful idea. It would give otherwise qualified students who are not confident in their financial backgrounds the ability to choose schools that come not only with the highest quality education but with the highest price tags as well. The schools, however, must not focus excessively on aid. They are raising their tuitions and causing distress for a number of families, while proudly announcing that they have made costs increasingly affordable to more people by providing help. Offering financial aid is only one of the many solutions that must be applied to make college affordable for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds, including those who often struggle to meet the costs due to insufficient financial support. Even while helping the disadvantaged, universities are leaving behind a different class that must carry the burden of high educational costs.