A handful of elite colleges and universities across the nation are responding to pressure from students, parents, alumni and lawmakers to make their educations more affordable and make financial access more of a priority. If Oberlin follows the trend and makes more financial aid available to more students, it may have to cut into funds originally reserved only for low-income students.

Harvard University has the largest endowment in America at $34.9 billion, with Yale University’s $22.5 billion a close second. Oberlin’s endowment is comparatively low at roughly $800 million. By freeing up more of their endowments for financial aid, both Harvard and Yale can slash tuition costs, giving more support to more of their students. University of Pennsylvania and Duke University are planning to do the same.

“I think the challenge is that our endowment per student is not that high, and if we keep drawing money from the endowment, it ends up mortgaging our future,” said President Marvin Krislov. “We’re doing well, but we’re not at the highest level of endowment.”

If Oberlin spends too much of its endowment without simultaneously investing successfully, the total endowment could fall over time.

“Right now, what I’m actually hoping to do is to inspire people who care about access to financial aid to help me,” said Krislov. He is also planning on establishing a scholarship in honor of his parents at Oberlin.

Although larger universities can include both middle- and low-income students in this plan, liberal arts colleges with smaller endowments may have a more difficult time making this a viable option. However, many of Oberlin’s peer institutions with significantly higher endowments, including Pomona, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges, have decided to follow suit and give more financial aid to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Schools on par with Oberlin often have a better ratio of endowment dollars per student. Peer schools include Williams, Wellesley, Amherst, Smith, Wesleyan, Bryn Mawr, Carleton and Mount Holyoke. Six of these schools have $1 billion endowments. With Oberlin’s endowment just under $800 million, the school may not have the luxury of allocating as much of its resources as its peer institutions have done; there is a risk that money will then be taken away from low-income students.

According to Advancing Oberlin, a new publication by the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs, the school wants to bring down its spending rate from 5.7 percent to five percent of the 36-month weighted average market value of the endowment over the next few years.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding about the endowment, and there might be the sense that we have all the resources in the world and, actually, we don’t,” said Krislov. He mentioned maintenance issues on campus as also being costly, such as fixing Johnson House, which flooded last week.

A seven-year capital campaign called the New Oberlin Century campaign finished in 2004 and saw the endowment increase by $86.7 million. Another capital campaign is in Oberlin’s near future as a part of an effort to push past the $1 billion notch.