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Harvard to Aid Students High in Middle Class
New York Times ^ | 10 December 2007 | By SARA RIMER and ALAN FINDER

Posted on 12/13/2007 1:40:24 PM PST by shrinkermd

Harvard University announced on Monday that it would significantly increase the financial aid it offered to middle-class and upper-middle-class students, seeking to allay concerns that elite colleges are becoming too expensive for even relatively well-off families.

The move, to go into effect in the next school year, appears to make Harvard’s aid to students with household incomes from $120,000 to $180,000 the most generous of any of the country’s prestigious private universities. Harvard will generally charge such students 10 percent of their family household income per year, substantially subsidizing the annual cost of more than $45,600.

Officials said the policy would cut costs by a third to 50 percent for many students and make the real costs of attending Harvard comparable to those at major state universities.

They said the initiative would increase financial aid spending by the university to $120 million annually from $98 million. A little more than half of Harvard undergraduates get some form of aid, including many from families earning $120,000 or more.

The new aid policy is part of a broader effort by elite universities to ease the financial burden of rising tuition and ward off the perception that they have become unaffordable. Amherst, Williams, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton are among those that have increased aid and substituted grants for loans to some students in recent years.

The move also comes as members of Congress, concerned that tuition has outpaced inflation, have been discussing whether universities should be required to spend a minimum amount of what their endowments earn on student aid. Harvard has a $35 billion endowment, the highest of any university.

“We’ve all been aware of increasing pressures on the middle class...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: harvard; middleclass; tuition
I post this anticipating a post on this same subject from the WSJ.
1 posted on 12/13/2007 1:40:26 PM PST by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd

Students are lining up now, to prove just how high they are.


2 posted on 12/13/2007 1:41:50 PM PST by samtheman
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To: shrinkermd

Why don’t they also do something about the cost not just subsidize tuition out of their endowments?


3 posted on 12/13/2007 1:42:42 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: shrinkermd
“Officials said the policy would cut costs by a third to 50 percent for many students and make the real costs of attending Harvard comparable to those at major state universities. “

Just goes to show how over priced and over rated they are if they can easily cut it 50%. Harvard isn’t what it used to be ... .

4 posted on 12/13/2007 1:48:06 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: shrinkermd

Terrible headline. I couldn’t understand why Harvard would be giving aid to high students. When did getting high become so valued?

Oh, never mind....


5 posted on 12/13/2007 1:48:43 PM PST by keepitreal
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To: shrinkermd

“The move also comes as members of Congress, concerned that tuition has outpaced inflation, have been discussing whether universities should be required to spend a minimum amount of what their endowments earn on student aid. Harvard has a $35 billion endowment, the highest of any university.”

LIBERALS, as Harvard University is ... are notorious for NOT spending THEIR money but TAKING as much as they can get from YOU!


6 posted on 12/13/2007 1:50:19 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: Paleo Conservative

What. And force Paul Krugman to work for $120,000 / yr? That ain’t gonna fly.


7 posted on 12/13/2007 2:04:53 PM PST by kylaka (iT)
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To: shrinkermd

Are SARA RIMER and ALAN FINDER just plain stupid!? My 4-year old boy can write better headlines than this and I’ve seen him eat dirt in the backyard.


8 posted on 12/13/2007 2:05:51 PM PST by TexGuy
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To: shrinkermd

It’s certainly about time that prestigious universities returned to the idea of rewarding merit, promise, and ability as the primary considerations.

We have had huge problems with some of our kids. One of my daughters had outstanding grades from a top rated high school, got astronomical SATs, and won a National Merit Scholarship. She was admitted into the best colleges, every one that she applied to, including Williams and Dartmouth (she didn’t apply to Harvard). BUT Williams and Dartmouth wouldn’t offer her a dime of scholarship money, although she reported that they were giving full four-year scholarships to other students who visited with her because they were designated minorities.

She ended up going to the University of New Hampshire, which anachronistically still seemed eager to award merit. Another of my daughters is now going there for the same reason.

Maybe Harvard is starting to realize that you can only afford to take in so many middling affirmative action kids, and lose so many of the brightest applicants, before you lose the cachet of being a top school that turns out the best and brightest.


9 posted on 12/13/2007 2:21:15 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: Cicero

“Maybe Harvard is starting to realize that you can only afford to take in so many middling affirmative action kids, and lose so many of the brightest applicants, before you lose the cachet of being a top school that turns out the best and brightest.”

Ouch.

True.


11 posted on 12/13/2007 2:35:06 PM PST by taxed2death (A few billion here, a few trillion there...we're all friends right?)
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To: Cicero

UNH is a solid school, your daughter will do well by them. She really dodged a bullet by not going to Harvard... they’re liberal ninnies with their heads up they’re arses- every last one of them. I had the misfortune of being employed by them at one point in my career- am I ever glad that I’m gone!


12 posted on 12/13/2007 2:52:22 PM PST by Beaker
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To: Cicero
A number of the so called "elite" schools, seem proud of the fact that they do not offer scholarships based on academic merit. My daughter, whose academic credentials are similar to those of your daughter, is thinking about applying to some of these schools, including Stanford, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania. She will also apply to several very fine schools that offer non-need based aid. Knowing my daughter as I do, I am sure that the amount of aid she is offered will be a very significant factor when she chooses a school this coming April.

Given the increasing costs of attending private colleges, the practical effect of a no merit aid policy has been to price the middle class and even much of the upper middle class out of the market for these schools. The schools have been left with the children of the poor, some middle class students who are members of favored categories, children of the truly rich and a few children from the upper middle class whose parents are willing to pay $45,000 to $50,000 (after tax) per year. This is hardly the "diverse" student body that these schools purportedly desire, nor is it necessarily one most likely to produce alumni of signficant accomplishment. Also, alumni who raise children who excell academically, but who cannot afford to send those children to the old alma mater, tend to reduce their annual pledges.

Harvard is the first of these schools to tacitly admit that a no merit aid policy has these undesired effects. Others will follow. Until then the uninitended beneficiaries of these policies will be the schools who understand that even higher education is subject to some price elasticity of demand.

13 posted on 12/13/2007 2:57:42 PM PST by p. henry
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To: shrinkermd
Harvard to Aid Students High in Middle Class . . . middle-class and upper-middle-class students . . . while Yale, Princeton and Stanford all give aid to students from middle- to upper-middle-class families

It's a laugh how the authors have to spin so hard to try and distinguish "middle class" from "upper middle class". The committed leftists in their target audience firmly believe that anyone making more than $70,000 (or is it $50,000?) is "rich" - just ask an Edwards or a Clinton or an Obama (or a Kerry, or a Kucinich, or a Dodd, or whatever - that's where they would draw the line at phony "middle-class" tax cuts).

For the NYT to suggest that a family income of $180,000 per year solidly qualifies you for inclusion in "the middle class", without even softening that truth with weasel words such as "for a family of four", is heresy of the highest order which is so intolerable to the oh-so-tolerant left, that they feel obligated to trot out all of the qualifying words to soften the blow on those fragile leftists' psyches.

But the word is out, the leftists' 'bible' has spoken, and all of those confused leftists who don't know what to think about a subject until they read their talking points in the NYT are going to have to make adjustments. Of course, class warfare is one of their cherished institutions, and they will not let go of even a small portion of it without a fight. I predict that soon we will see an asterisk with fine print in the Demo-Commie campaign literature explaining that when they say "middle class", they are excluding the members of the "middle and upper middle class" so that they can target the "poor middle class". What a bunch of Communist clowns...

14 posted on 12/13/2007 3:20:36 PM PST by Zeppo (We live in the Age of Stupidity. [Dennis Prager])
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To: Beaker

I went to Harvard myself (’57). Even back then it was liberal, but they had some really fine teachers if you had the sense to look around for them.

I don’t think that’s true now, at least not in the humanities. With a few exceptions, mostly holdovers from earlier days who are on the point of retirement, most of them are ideological brain washers, gender benders, or assorted flakes and nuts. Clever, certainly, but not what I would want my kids to have to cope with.

And it’s not just a matter of left and right. It’s a matter of students never getting the chance to be exposed to a real, liberal education, or “the best that has been thought and said.”


15 posted on 12/13/2007 3:44:49 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero

My daughter was in the first class of women admitted to a prestigious and expensive private college. We were sufficiently middle class that she did not qualify for financial aid, although they generously gave her $100 each year as an honorarium for having been selected for a prize fellowship. She certainly met their expectations, being Phi Beta Kappa and ODK. The college failed mine, however, because some students from middle class families easily “cooked the books” to qualify for aid, and though on scholarship, could afford late model cars from the high end, study abroad, spring breaks in the most desired places,and many another enhancement, whereas my daughter worked in the library, served as a dorm counselor, and worked hard every summer just to be able to stay there. I will concede that she got a very good education which has served her well, but I am still annoyed that the wealthy students got the full deal, and so did those on scholarships, many of whom even got a semester abroad on the college’s nickel. Though it is too late for my kids, I hope that Harvard’s action has a ripple effect which helps really able middle class kids have access to the prestige institutions equal to the access afforded to the welfare class and to the athletically gifted but academically challenged regardless of class.


16 posted on 12/13/2007 3:46:02 PM PST by mathurine
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To: shrinkermd

I received this e-mail some time ago — can anyone confirm?

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on
undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In
making the announcement, Harvard’s president Lawrence H. Summers said,
‘When only 10 percent of the students in Elite higher education come from
families in lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing
enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the
lower half of the income distribution.’

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor
student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay
the tuition. The prestigious university recently announced that from now
on undergraduate students from low-income families can go to Harvard for
free...no tuition and no student loans!

To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making
less than $60,000 a year visit Harvard’s financial aid website at:
http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/ or call the school’s financial aid office
at (617) 495-1581.


17 posted on 12/13/2007 4:12:26 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: scrabblehack

True I think—the hardest part is still getting into Harvard.


18 posted on 12/16/2007 9:41:12 PM PST by Young Scholar
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