The no-loan initiative announced by college President Nicole Hurd that will provide increased financial aid to students with family incomes below $200,000 has been widely applauded by the college for making higher education more accessible for middle-income families. However, the changes do not apply to international students.
According to Hurd, international students are not eligible for public aid on a federal or state level. Therefore, all financial aid received is from the institution that is attended itself.
“We’ve made a very large investment in … international students, and part of our goal is to continue to be able to invest resources international students in an aggressive way,” Hurd said.
Hurd said that this approach “makes Lafayette an outlier in education.”
“There are a lot of schools that do not have … meaningful aid for international students because that means institutional investment, given that they’re not eligible for federal [funding],” she added.
Following the announcement, concerns were brought by several Lafayette international students. Baris Yazici ’25, an international student, questioned how this will affect the admissions process for international students.
“Does loan free education for only domestic students mean Lafayette will start accepting less international students with financial aid?” he asked.
However, the school is looking towards expanding the financial aid offerings for international students. One barrier is limited data to help compare assets across countries.
“If we’ve got forty six different countries represented, then we’ve got potentially forty six different financial situations,” Vice President for Enrollment Management Forrest Stuart said. “For … an asset in one country, how does that relate to the assets in America? And then how does it relate to other countries’ assets as well? For equitable reasons, we have to analyze the income and the asset structure of families.”
Institutional loan packages, campus work-study and increased financial aid packages for international students to cover the cost of travel are still provided. Both international and domestic students also have 100 percent of demonstrated need met.
Emma Li ’27 contributed reporting.
