15 Cited For Blocking Street In Financial Aid Protest

Nearly 20 Yale undergraduates blocked traffic on College Street on Wednesday in a protest against a university policy that students on financial aid pay up to $5,000 every year to cover unbilled costs associated with being a full-time student.

The protest lasted for roughly 20 minutes, and ended with city police handing out 15 misdemeanor summonses for disorderly conduct. No students were arrested.

University spokesperson Thomas Conroy said the very premise of the student protest is based off of a misunderstanding of the university’s financial aid policy.

Students on financial aid are not required to work in order to attend school, he said, and they are not billed for any specific student contribution towards their enrollment. Instead, their financial aid packages include estimates of how much students can reasonably be expected to earn while attending school, and students are allowed to pay for that Student Effort amount through a variety of source. See more on Conroy’s response below.

The protest started at around 1:10 p.m., when a group of student organizers and UNITE-HERE supporters wearing orange safety vests unfurled yellow caution tape across College Street just outside of Phelps Gate between Elm Street and Chapel Street. Around 20 students, all wearing placards around their necks that read, ​“For Full Financial Aid,” followed them into the middle of the street, clasped hands, sat down, and started chanting.

Hannah Lee, one of the organizers of the protest and a member of Students Unite Now (SUN), said that the students had taken to the streets to draw attention to Yale’s Student Income Contribution policy, which she said requires students who receive financial aid to take on ​“work-study” jobs during the semester and pay the university upwards of $5,000 every year. (See university response below for their explanation of how the Student Effort works.)

Lee, a 21-year-old junior at the university, said that she had to take a job managing mice in a lab in order to meet her required $1,600 annual contribution to the university. She could not afford to take an unpaid research job in her chosen field of anthropology, she said, because the burden of the SIC meant that she had to seek out paid work, whatever that may be, rather than work more pertinent to her interests and potential career.

Now working on immunology research, Lee said that, If Yale scrapped the SIC requirement, ​“I wouldn’t be the only person of color in my lab. I wouldn’t be the only low-income person in my lab.”

As the protest continued, student organizer Hannah Schmitt circled the group sitting in the middle of the street, leading them in anti-SIC chants like ​“One two three four. The endowment can do more. Five six seven eight. Don’t reduce, eliminate” and ​“Hey, Yale, we’re done waiting. The SIC is discriminating.

After the first 10 minutes of the protest, city police officers overseen by Downtown top cop Lt. Sean Maher started asking asking protesters to get up, ushering them to the sidewalk, and issuing them misdemeanor summonses for disorderly conduct for blocking vehicular traffic.

Maher said that city police issued around 15 summonses, and did not arrest any of the students. Before the protest had begun, the police announced via megaphone in both English and Spanish that protesters would be given 10 minutes to move from the street before police started issuing summonses.

As police worked in pairs to escort students from the street to the sidewalk, Maher described the protest a ​“pretty well-organized, orderly” affair.

Yale spokesperson Thomas Conroy provided the following statement regarding the student protest:

Myths and facts about the Student Effort

Need-based financial aid is, by its nature, complex. Unfortunately, misunderstandings about Yale’s financial aid policies have led to some persistent myths.

Myth: Yale sends students on financial aid a bill for a Student Income Contribution (SIC).

Fact: There is nothing called the Student Income Contribution. Nothing called the Student Income Contribution or the Student Effort ever appears on a Yale bill.

Myth: The Student Effort is what Yale requires students on financial aid to pay the university.

Fact: The Student Effort is a standardized estimate of a student’s ability to earn income while enrolled at Yale. Most of the Student Effort is used to cover unbilled expenses such as course books and laundry. Students can pay any outstanding balance on their student account with funds from any source.

Myth: Yale requires students on financial aid to work an on-campus job and take only paid summer employment options.

Fact: Yale does not require any student to work, either on campus or during the summer. Students and their families always have multiple options to meet their net cost (see the section above). Yale’s Domestic Summer Award and International Summer Award provide extraordinary funding resources for international opportunities and unpaid employment options.

Myth: On-campus work divides the Yale student body by socio-economic class. 

Fact: Last year, 60% of all undergraduates held an on-campus job. Yale students worked at an on-campus job, on average, 4 hours per week. Students receiving financial aid worked, on average, 5 hours per week, and are only slightly more likely to hold an on-campus job compared with peers not on aid.

Myth: Yale could easily eliminate the Student Effort.

Fact: In order to eliminate the student effort within the existing budget, Yale would need to reduce the size of the faculty by about 100, limit financial aid to approximately 360 fewer students than now, or increase tuition for all students not on financial aid by about $6,000.

Myth: Yale’s policies are out of line with similar institutions.

Fact: Every college or university with 100% need-based aid has a similar Student Effort. Only merit-based scholarships – awarded to a small number of students – do not include a Student Effort. The nine other universities in the Ivy+ group have Student Effort figures that range from $4,000 to $6,200. Several of these universities also package loans to meet demonstrated need; Yale does not.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch part of the protest.