Universities Weblog

The Ivies and other elite universities are engaged in a bidding war for low-income students. Or at least they're engaged in a war to see who can capture better headlines. Harvard just revealed it will increase the minimum threshold for what it considers "low income" to $60,000. This follows recent announcements by Stanford, Princeton, Penn and Yale, which have pledged to eliminate loans for low-income students. Harvard's move raises the bar from its previous perch of $40,000.

This comes from the Boston Globe:

Parents from families with annual incomes of less than $60,000 will not have to contribute to the cost of their child's education at Harvard University, a 50 percent increase over the previous income threshold.

Harvard on Thursday also expanded its financial aid program for low- and middle-income families by announcing reduced parental contributions for families with incomes between $60,000 and $80,000.

Harvard announced a program two years ago to waive fees for students from families with an income of less than $40,000.

"There is no more important mission for Harvard and higher education than promoting equality of opportunity for all," President Lawrence H. Summers said in a statement. "These increases … send a clear signal to middle-class families who have all too often felt that Harvard and other leading universities are out of reach."

Two-thirds of Harvard students receive financial aid, and the average grant award for the next academic year is expected to be more than $33,000, which covers about 70 percent of costs.

It cost nearly $42,000 to attend Harvard for the current academic year.

Read the rest here.

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