Dartmouth is stripping student loans

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Dartmouth is stripping student loans from its financial aid packages to allow students to 'prepare for lives of impact with fewer constraints'
[size=0.875]Ayelet Sheffey
Jun 21, 2022, 12:29 PM 【Insider】


The Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

• Dartmouth announced that it's removing federal student loans from its financial aid packages.
• Instead, it plans to expand grant and scholarship options that don't need to be repaid.
• It joined a growing number of schools that have removed loans to decrease students' debt burdens.
  

Dartmouth College just joined the growing number of schools in the US working to remove the student debt burden that accompanies a higher education.

On Monday, Dartmouth — a private New Hampshire college with about 4,100 undergraduate students — announced that it would eliminate federal and institutional student loans from its financial aid packages, replacing them with scholarship grants, a Dartmouth article said. The shift was made possible by more than $80 million in gifts to the school's endowment from 65 families, and it's set to go into effect on June 23, when the 2022 summer term begins.

"Thanks to this extraordinary investment by our community, students can prepare for lives of impact with fewer constraints," Philip Hanlon, Dartmouth's president, said in a statement. "Eliminating loans from financial aid packages will allow Dartmouth undergraduates to seek their purpose and passion in the broadest possible range of career possibilities."

Prior to this announcement, Dartmouth offered students from families with incomes under $125,000 need-based financial aid without requiring federal student loans. Now, the benefit is available for all students, which the school estimated would decrease debt burdens for "hundreds of middle-income Dartmouth students" by an average of $22,000 over four years — and $5,500 in borrowing for each student that would have had to take out loans per year.