Harvard to announce aid for poor students

Harvard to announce aid for poor students

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff, 2/29/2004

Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, is expected to announce today that parents who make less than $40,000 a year will no longer be asked to help pay for their child's Harvard education.

"We want to send the strongest possible message that Harvard is open to talented students from all economic backgrounds," Summers said in a statement that was released yesterday.

Under the plan, Harvard will foot the entire bill for its lowest-income students' tuition, room, board, and fees, the cost of which is $37,928 for this year. The initiative is one of several -- all aimed at boosting efforts to recruit and support students from low- or moderate-income families -- that Summers is scheduled to announce this afternoon in Miami, at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education.

As the rising cost of a college education has become increasingly alarming to families, many universities, including Harvard, have been examining how they can strengthen their financial aid. They are also struggling to get out the message that despite astronomical price tags, students of few means can still attend a private college with the help of grants and loans.

One recent federal government study said that families, especially from low incomes, often "substantially overestimate" how much college would cost them. Low-income students are also far less likely to go to college.

David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, said yesterday that Harvard, as the nation's most closely watched institution, can use its initiative to get out the message that even the best schools are within the reach of poor students.

"This is a very powerful symbol," Ward said. "What we want to say is that in America, colleges are engines of opportunity. If you have the credentials, you can go to college for free."

Ward also said that financial aid is an arena of hot competition among elite universities.

Princeton made waves three years ago when it replaced loans with grants for low- and middle-income families. A week ago, Yale announced it would increase stipends to graduate students.

"They are competing with each other for the best low-income students," Ward said.

At Harvard, parents with a combined income under $40,000 previously would be expected to contribute $2,300 a year to their child's education. Under the new plan, they will be expected to contribute nothing, Summers said.

Parents with combined incomes up to $60,000 will also see their expected contribution reduced by an average of $1,250, the university statement said.

The new aid formula is expected to benefit more than 1,000 families next year, of a student population of 6,600, the statement said. It will cost Harvard about $2 million next year, meaning that its scholarship budget of $80 million has grown by almost 50 percent in six years. That growth rate has far outpaced inflation, which has risen by less than 15 percent over the same period, according to university figures.

Summers is also expected to announce today that Harvard is intensifying efforts to recruit students from disadvantaged backgrounds who otherwise would not have considered the school as an option. Among possibilities: waiving the application fee, paying travel costs for a campus visit, and helping to pay for books and clothing, the statement said.

Last fall, in a speech at Black Alumni Weekend, Summers said, "The most moving experience I've had in many ways" as Harvard president was visiting Hialeah High School, outside of Miami, a school with a talented, mostly immigrant student population that Harvard has tried to get to know.

"You could just see, talking to people, that for the three or four kids who came to Harvard each year, we were touching the lives and raising the sights of dozens, if not hundreds, of other kids in that school," Summers said. "And we were making a difference."

This summer, Harvard will open the Crimson Summer Academy, a four-week program for economically disadvantaged high school students from Greater Boston. The program is free, and it includes a stipend to cover lost summer wages. There is also a $3,000 scholarship for students who complete three summers.

"Too often, outstanding students from families of modest means do not believe that college is an option for them -- much less an Ivy League University," Summers said in the statement. "Our doors have long been open to talented students regardless of financial need, but many students simply do not know or believe this. We are determined to change both the perception and the reality."

Summers could not be reached last night. One other local university president, Lawrence S. Bacow of Tufts, said that while a number of schools both public and private have been experimenting with measures to make themselves more affordable, Harvard's plan is sure to be among the most high-profile efforts, and one that will thus influence other universities.

"What this does is increase the access of the neediest of our students to a first-class education," Bacow said yesterday. "We hope to be in a position to do it soon, although we're not there yet."