Looking for an excuse to turn down Yale? Here's one.

Yale students have always complained about how their financial aid pales in comparison to Princeton and Harvard's.In late February, they announced a 4.8% increase in tuition, and to compensate, they added a 10% increase in financial aid expenditures and guaranteed parents of students on aid would not receive any hike in the tuition bill.It was all an effort to make Yale more appealing to antsy pre-frosh. But it left everyone wondering... what's the catch?A February 25 opinion piece in the Yale Daily News cut to the chase:

More stealthily hidden in his announcement was a much more insidious change: a 15 percent increase in the “self-help” requirement of students on financial aid — from $2,600 this year to $3,000 next.

So, Yalies have to work more hours to finance their own education. And an opinion piece in today's YDN points to the injustice of a bulked-up student contribution level, which the article calls, "a decision made without public student input":

This 15 percent increase in term-time self-help increases the financial pressure on students who already work hard to finance their own education. As Ryan Nees ’12 noted (“‘Self-help’ slams students,” Feb. 25), at the average student wage, these students would have to work an extra hour and 15 minutes each week to account for the hike — in turn limiting their ability to participate most fully in campus life and increasing their likelihood of accumulating substantial debt.

Plus, since Yale is already struggling to provide aid packages as seductive as Princeton and Harvard's, it bodes worse that the $400 increase in student contribution requirements puts them at a $3,000 contribution level, significantly higher than Harvard's ($2,500) and our own ($2,345).

(image via i.cdn.turner.com)