<p>Read it all here:</p>
<p>Harvard</a> announces sweeping middle-income initiative — The Harvard University Gazette</p>
<p>Free</a> Preview - WSJ.com</p>
<p>Exciting times!</p>
<p>That's awesome!</p>
<p>Does anyone know how this affects transfer students?</p>
<p>Thanks, xjayz, you beat me to posting those links. </p>
<p>After edit: Here's Bloomberg on the same subject: </p>
<p>Bloomberg.com:</a> U.S.</p>
<p>That is pretty incredible. I wonder how Yale, Princeton and Stanford will respond?</p>
<p>Wow!!!........</p>
<p>Princeton had already eliminated all loans in their aid package - they have had a considerable advantage for several years over harvard in this respect in convincing students to attend. But I don't know the details of their income level policies.</p>
<p>This is great news for middle income families.</p>
<p>princeton had also already eliminated consideration of home equity. so in two of the three "components" of this set of reforms, harvard is merely matching the earlier reforms made by princeton. harvard will receive harvard-like coverage, nonetheless, but that can hardly be complained of, given the good that will come of this for applicants.</p>
<p>Harvard does not include loans in a typical financial aid package for families that qualify for HFAI (<60K).</p>
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in two of the three "components" of this set of reforms, harvard is merely matching the earlier reforms made by princeton.
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<p>This is correct. Princeton caught my eye quite a few years ago with its announcement that a family's equity in its principal residence would not count as an asset for calculating financial aid. That has to make a difference for a lot of families in the northeast.</p>
<p>Wow! Terrific news.
From the Harvard Gazette:
• The “Zero to 10 Percent Standard”: Harvard’s new financial aid policy dramatically reduces the amount families with incomes below $180,000 will be expected to pay. Families with incomes above $120,000 and below $180,000 and with assets typical for these income levels will be asked to pay 10 percent of their incomes. For those with incomes below $120,000, the family contribution percentage will decline steadily from 10 percent, reaching zero for those with incomes at $60,000 and below. For example, a typical family making $120,000 will be asked to pay approximately $12,000 for a child to attend Harvard College, compared with more than $19,000 under existing student aid policies. For a typical family with $180,000 of income, the payment would be approximately $18,000, compared with more than $30,000 today. The new standard reduces the cost to families by one-third to one-half, making the price of a Harvard education for students on financial aid comparable to the cost of in-state tuition and fees at the nation’s leading public universities. The new initiative also establishes a standard that students and their families can easily understand.</p>
<p>• No Loans: In calculating the financial aid packages offered to undergraduates, Harvard will not expect students to take out loans. Loan funds will be replaced by increased grants from the University. Of course, students will be permitted to cover their reduced cost of attendance through loans if they wish.</p>
<p>• Eliminate Home Equity from Consideration: Under the new policy, Harvard will no longer consider home equity in determining a family’s ability to pay for college. This will reduce the price by an average of $4,000 per year for affected families as compared with current practice.</p>
<p>I never even thought about looking at Harvard, but my dad is really pushing it now!</p>
<p>I've been telling my local friends about Harvard (and Princeton) for years, both on affordability grounds and on academic suitability grounds. So far none of my local friends whose incomes are in the range mentioned in the Harvard Gazette announcement have had their children apply to any college in the Ivy League. I think one local friend of my son's may have an application ready to go to Princeton soon, but I'm not sure where else that student is applying. Usually the state university honors program grabs up most of the smartest young people I know locally, unless the local young people are from first-generation immigrant families, who supply many of Minnesota's applicants to the nationally famous colleges.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there is a good amount of students from Minnesota at Harvard.</p>
<p>HOLY BEJEEZUS! Harvard's yield will be over 70% this year I'm sure.</p>
<p>wow im excited!</p>
<p>wow this is really good news... hopefully other schools will take a hint as well.</p>
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Harvard's yield will be over 70% this year I'm sure.
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<p>It has been in every recent year. I didn't expect Harvard's yield to go down when it went to a single-deadline admission system this year. It looks like today's announcement was timed to ensure a larger number of lower-income applicants (it doesn't take a very low income to be below Harvard's current median income of enrolled student families). All the best to Harvard for pressing this issue some more.</p>
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Nevertheless, there is a good amount of students from Minnesota at Harvard.
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<p>Despite what I said above, that is, and I agree with this reply. The College Board and ACT state reports </p>
<p>College-Bound</a> Seniors 2007 </p>
<p>ACT</a> National and State Scores for 2007 </p>
<p><a href="http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/states/Minnesota.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/states/Minnesota.pdf</a> </p>
<p>are an interesting way to get a reality check on where students from each state apply, by checking where they send test score reports. Harvard gets a sufficient number of SAT reports from Minnesota each year to show that there is a good level of interest in Harvard among students here. (Most Minnesota students send most of their ACT reports to in-region colleges.) </p>
<p>That said, I still know families with very bright children who think that Harvard is unapproachably expensive, when compared to the state university with its full-ride merit scholarships for top applicants. Evidently some families here conclude that an Ivy League education may offer better value than State U (my alma mater), and that is an issue I'm pondering on behalf of local friends and perhaps some of my own children, but other families here are already convinced, or were until today, that it's not even worth applying to the Ivies. I talk up announcements like today's from Harvard in local email lists so that parents consider all the possibilities.</p>
<p>Sounds great to me.</p>