Davidson College President Carol Quillen testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as part of a hearing on "Innovations in College Affordability." Here are excerpts from her remarks:

On behalf of Davidson College and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, I am here to describe an initiative called The Davidson Trust.

In 2007, Davidson eliminated loans from its financial aid packages. When a student is admitted through our need-blind process, we meet 100 percent of that student's demonstrated need through a combination of grants and employment, usually work-study.

This initiative is a huge financial commitment. As we implemented it, we relied on pro-education (governmental) policies and on gifts from The Duke Endowment and the Knight Foundation. We sustain The Davidson Trust through unprecedented ongoing giving from the Davidson College community who have made our commitment to access, their own.

Ensuring access to an unsurpassed education is for us an ethical imperative. So Davidson extends to all talented students this invitation and promise: We want you here; you can afford it; and if you enroll at Davidson, we will do everything we can to ensure that you thrive while you are at Davidson and after you graduate.

Measured in terms of admission statistics, The Davidson Trust is working. We have maintained the highest academic standards, and students from underrepresented groups, first generation students, and Federal Pell Grant recipients are all up significantly.

These numbers matter, but they are not the only measures of success. Davidson's four-year graduation rate is 88 percent; and our six-year graduation rate is 92 percent. Both have remained remarkably consistent with implementation of The Davidson Trust. Last year, six months after graduation, roughly 95 percent of Davidson graduates were in graduate school or employed in a career-related job. We are keeping our promise.

The most telling indicator of our success is not graduation rates, or our increasingly diverse student body, or our growing reputation as a good place for first-generation students. The most telling measure is what our graduates do in and for the world. We already know that The Davidson Trust enables us to attract an ever greater number of extraordinary young people whose talents enrich our campus. We look forward to and are grateful for the incredible things they will do in the world.

What we do is expensive. Yet we strive to bridge the privilege gap. Davidson College is one place in America where rich and poor kids live and learn together. And consider what our students do. They publish research that will help cure Alzheimer's; they develop a leadership program for middle-school girls; they start a non-profit organization that designs sports programs for at-risk youth or create a national registry for bone marrow donors. They graduate emboldened to lead and eager to serve.

Davidson is a distinctive example among a small group of need-blind institutions with a dual commitment to unsurpassed academic rigor and access. Through programs like The Davidson Trust, we are changing the face of society's leadership and striving to make equal opportunity real.

We welcome and need you as allies in this quest.