I just got this email from the President of Amherst College. As of the 2008-2009 school year, Amherst will be replacing the student loan portion of all students’ financial aid packages with a scholarship. Now that makes me want to donate money to my alma mater in a more serious fashion. I haven’t met Anthony Marx in person, but I have been impressed with his vision. Well done. A copy of the email is below:

Dear Amherst College Alumnus or Alumna:

I write to let you know about an important new change to Amherst’s financial aid practices. Acting on the advice of faculty committees, the Board of Trustees has decided that beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, Amherst College will replace all loans with scholarships in its financial aid packages. This should be especially helpful to students from middle-income families, who too often have had to take on significant debt in order to ensure access to an outstanding education, and who too often graduate feeling that their career choices are constrained by that debt. With this change of policy, Amherst is ensuring that we can attract the most talented students, regardless of their economic standing, while providing further, proactive leadership to higher education in this important area.

This new policy—one in place at only two other colleges and universities nationally—builds on Amherst’s longstanding leadership around accessibility and scholarship. Seven years ago, Amherst demonstrated its commitment to being a leader in making education more accessible to low-income students by eliminating loans for students from families with incomes of less than $40,000 a year. A few years ago, we expanded this policy to include families whose incomes were below $60,000 a year. The new initiative that will be implemented next year significantly broadens our commitment by eliminating loans for all families. Once implemented, this new policy will affect not only incoming students in the Class of 2012, but also current Amherst students.

Let me be clear about what this new policy will mean. Because Amherst is need-blind, every student admitted to the College receives financial aid that meets the student’s full financial need. Currently, middle-income students take on federal or college loans as part of financial aid packages that also include scholarships, grants and job opportunities. Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, the loan component of this financial aid package will be replaced with scholarships; no Amherst student will be required to take out loans in order to come to Amherst. (We know that many families will still choose to take some private loans to cover their expected payment.)

This is a significant new financial commitment for Amherst. But, as our Board of Trustees chair, Jide Zeitlin ’85, noted in a news release about this program, for almost two centuries Amherst’s alumni, parents and friends have consistently demonstrated a commitment to supporting Amherst when it has taken steps to broaden access to the college by the most talented students from across the nation and the world. We believe that this new program, designed to eliminate barriers for middle-income families and allow an even greater number of students to graduate from Amherst without debt, will inspire new levels of commitment from those who know the College best. We hope, too, that our actions will encourage other institutions to take similar steps to open their doors to talented young people, regardless of circumstance.

With best wishes and thanks for all you do for Amherst,

Anthony W. Marx

Charlie O’Donnell recently noted that his company, OddCast, is posting an employment opportunity with the following disclaimer:

An MBA is not only not required, it is frowned upon.

I immediately nodded in recognition when reading his post because I privately harbored the same feeling when I worked in startups. My experience instructed me that MBAs were particularly well suited for finding and defining problems (a useful skill). They were less than amazing at solving them (a much more useful skill). Of course, like all stereotypes, this is not always true. I count several MBAs in my group of friends who are smarter, and better problem solvers than I will ever hope to be.

But I quickly realized that OddCast’s endeavor is misguided.

I assume that OddCast is using an MBA as a proxy here for some underlying character traits that it would like to avoid in a candidate. Of course my point is moot if OddCast is merely using the MBA to weed out over qualified candidates. For instance, if the position was for an administrative assistant, noting that having an MBA is frowned upon would be rational, if not obvious.

I think the job posting is misguided for several reasons:

First, the obvious point. I am not sure that an MBA is an accurate enough proxy. I know for a fact that although some general statements can be made about business school (or law school) education, no such statements can be made about all of the people that choose to attend such schools. People are always surprised to hear that I am a lawyer. I don’t fit the stereotype (for several reasons).

Secondly, a simple balancing test (sorry, alas, I am a lawyer) reveals that any marginal amount of time saved not having to interview MBAs that were discouraged from applying can’t be worth not meeting even one perfect candidate.

At this stage in OddCast’s early life, every member of the team counts. Immensely. Making a significant hiring mistake can make or break a business. But there are really two types of hiring mistakes and I argue that the one OddCast is making is the greater of the two.

Hiring the wrong person for a position can be devastating to a startup. The time it takes to realize that an employee is underperforming is time that startups frankly can’t afford to lose. However, if a candidate is underperforming, at least you can recognize that fact, and hopefully, correct it.

Worse, I think, is the employee that is merely meeting targets who was choosen over a potential hire that would have blown the top off of expectations. I believe this situation to be worse because you can’t correct for this mistake - because you don’t know that you have made it. There are no indicators. The person you hired is doing as expected. And the person you didn’t hire is off making another company more successful.

I am not advocating that one should make the perfect the enemy of the good. We would never make hiring decisions if we waited to make sure we had seen every candidate. But, I think it is a mistake to intentionally limit the pool of qualified applicants at the pre-application stage. There is no good reason for discouraging an entire class of people from applying in an attempt to avoid a certain character trait. Tweak the interview process to detect for the trait you want to avoid. If you really feel that you are losing valuable time interviewing poor candidates develop a pre-screening process to better match candidates with opportunities. Both of these options will be more accurate while leaving you open to meeting the candidate who can help take your business to the next level, and who might (despite his talent) have an MBA.

Update: Another interesting point just crossed my mind. Because there is no context, it is unclear whether OddCast’s disdain for MBAs is particular to this current opening. If it is, what happens when they need an MBA to fill an unrelated position? This would likely happen when it needs to bring in a more seasoned executive, one who might very well have an MBA.

From Sesame Street

I came across the The SEED School a year ago. I’d love to work for these guys. They started the first and only urban boarding school. It is located in S.E. DC and from what I understand, admission is based on lottery and not test scores. I love the fact that it is located in the community. I hated seeing what prep for prep did to some of my classmates in college. I think this approach is spot on. I know too many kids that grew up in the Marcy Projects but went to Andover or Choate and then a potted ivy. They never quite got comfortable. I always felt as if they were rootless. Absolutely nothing wrong with a kid from the PJs going to Exeter. I just hate the modern myth that to “save” our promising minorities requires extracting them from their communities and delivering them to safety, like the Delta Force rescuing a P.O.W.

I look forward to learning more about SEED.