A Small College Is Eliminating Loans From Its Financial Aid Packages

Williams College, a small private liberal arts school in northwestern Massachusetts, plans to eliminate loans and work-study employment from its financial aid packages and replace those funds with grants — an example of a college responding to increasing public pressure to make higher education more affordable. The new policy means aid that students previously received as loans or through campus jobs will now come in the form of grant money that they do not have to repay, the college announced last week. The initiative, which Williams described as the first of its kind in the United States, does not preclude families from taking out other federal, state or private loans for students’ education.