<p>Northstarmom:</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the story. My hats off to this kid</p>
<p>These kids make me feel proud American. :)</p>
<p>My eyes are filled with tears on good of the human spirit. Thanks agian</p>
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<p>Full scholarships do not include loans, and include some money for expenses related to school.</p>
<p>Fundraising is very appropriate, but soliciting on a website is a little troubling, only because it seems there is someone marketing/handling all this.</p>
<p>Furthermore, this is the kind of thing I meant when I wrote about institutional support. If Harvard admits someone who is homeless, then financial help with the extra expenses listed might be appropriate.</p>
<p>Harvard has financial aid and special funds to cover extra expenses. However, those funds wouldn’t cover things like finding permanent housing for her sibling and mother, which I imagine she’d like to be able to do.</p>
<p>I worked in the field (homelessness, housing). There are resources to help the mom and sibling. This student should not have to worry about that. </p>
<p>I have never heard of a family being forced to live on the streets for long, at least among “garbage and pimps.” It really shouldn’t be such a big part of someone’s identity. It happens to lots of people, and they move on, usually quietly.</p>
<p>Compmom,</p>
<p>When people say “full scholarship” what they almost always mean is “full financial aid”. There are very few schools that offer full grant aid. As a financial aid director and a Harvard alum, let me tell you that full financial aid (as opposed to scholarship) does indeed include both loans and work/federal work-study- about 3600 a year at Harvard. And college budgets generally do not include the “extras,” like a computer or tutoring or flying home for Thanksgiving or to visit your sister. Khadijah is likely to have a significant amount of debt when she graduates </p>
<p>As for living on the streets, unfortunately many people with children wind up there because staying in a shelter often brings the attention of child welfare authorities and often the loss of the children to foster care. It is clear that Khadijah’s mom was trying to keep her family together by ducking the authorities.</p>
<p>The website doesn’t so much solicit contributions as it answers the many people who offered help. Of course, there is someone/many someones helping Khadijah with the fundraising/marketing of this. How many 18 year olds can handle this kind of intense media attention? I hope she has very media savvy people helping her. Liz Murray had a very difficult time managing it and I hope Khadijah has learned from that.</p>
<p>For someone who has overcome so much to achieve such laudable dreams is amazing. But getting there is only halfway of the story. Fundraising is appropriate, and in our day-and-age, what better way than to raise awareness through the technology available?</p>
<p>Paying for boarding and tuition is not necessarily enough. Textbooks are expensive. Study materials are expensive. As a Harvard student, I can attest that Harvard does provide a lot, but it is an immense help to be able to buy one’s own textbook. </p>
<p>I understand that there are resources to help Khadijah’s family, but her dreaming about buying a home for her own mother is an absolutely admirable goal. I wholeheartedly support the fact that she has the courage to raise a voice about her dreams and ask whoever wants to help her, to support her. </p>
<p>Compmom, you’re right; she shouldn’t have to worry about that. But as a person who knows Khadijah, I know she loves her family. </p>
<p>I’m sure that many people share the sentiment that if their mothers were homeless, they’d dream of housing their family members too - because they love them- even if it wasn’t their responsibility to.</p>
<p>Nancy Grant, I have personal experience with Harvard’s financial aid, and that of other colleges, and you are incorrect about the current situation. Harvard and other schools have made a commitment to provide full aid without loans, for those whose EFC’s qualify. Work study is $3400 this year. This student could earn that amount with a campus job.</p>
<p>Many schools do include expenses such as books and airplane fare in their aid. I know that Questbridge students receive this kind of help, too.</p>
<p>I am aware of the danger of child protective services for parents on the street. However, as a strategy for avoiding such intervention, living on the streets without using resources such as shelters is not a workable strategy for women and children, and I doubt anyone could keep it up for long. It is also possible that families are less vulnerable to harmful interventions when in a shelter, than while on the streets.</p>
<p>compmom,</p>
<p>I don’t want to play one-upmanship with you because I have very specific information about both Harvard financial aid and Khadijah. Harvard will give full financial aid without loans but those packages (including Khadijah’s) include $3400 of work-study and $1200 of summer work for a total of $4600 (for a sophomore, it gets higher as a junior or senior). For a student like Khadijah, who must devote more time to her studies, that work obligation is extremely difficult to meet (about 12 hours a week of work) and Harvard will loan her that money. So, although in theory Harvard has gives packages without loans, the reality is that for low-income students, work is often replaced with loans. In addition, tutoring is an additional expense not covered in the standard Harvard budget and which requires an additional application with no assurance of getting it. While Harvard’s budget does include an allowance for books and travel, it does not allow more than two roundtrips, so a student like Khadijah rarely gets home (and where does she stay?) My point is that your assertion that Khadijah (and other such students) is financially covered by Harvard’s financial aid is woefully incorrect and some fundraising is appropriate to a student in Khadijah’s situation.</p>
<p>Secondly, it is clear that Khadijah’s mom moved from shelter to shelter to avoid child welfare authorities in order to keep her children out of foster care. I am not arguing that it is a good strategy, only that it is what she did it “successfully” for much of Khadijah’s life. It is likely that it will not work as well for her younger sister.</p>
<p>I quoted the $3400 figure for work study above, and am well aware of the difficulties meeting the work requirement for many students. I don’t think the summer work requirement still stands.</p>
<p>In an earlier post, I said that Harvard itself should provide extra support for a student such as this, that admissions loves students who have “overcome obstacles,” but once on campus, these same students may need supports that the institution does not yet provide. In this case, tutoring and some extra funds for books etc. would be an example. Accommodations for chronic illness or learning disabilities would be another need for many students. </p>
<p>Many students on financial aid are not able to do the work study, including those with health problems, or those who are struggling academically for whatever reason. It shoudl be raised as an issue with the university.</p>
<p>Online fundraising does not seem like the best way to pay for a student’s education, and students should not have to go to those lengths.</p>
<p>I also mentioned a movie and book about a paraplegic student at Harvard. Her mom had to live in the dorm with her, leaving her other children behind at home. With glowing publicity, this student and her mom were portrayed as heroes. I felt that, instead of heroics on their part, Harvard should have made it possible for the girl to attend without the mom in the dorm. They admitted her, and should have followed through without the family having to make so many sacrifices.</p>
<p>The summer work contribution does still stand at $1200 for a rising sophomore. </p>
<p>My point though is that when people hear “full financial aid,” they think a full scholarship or grant, a"full ride." And when schools say no loans, they often neglect to mention the other aspect of what used to be called the “self-help” part of the financial aid package - work (often work-study). For many low-income students who need to spend every minute they can on their studies, such work components wind up being loan as it did for Khadijah. In addition, a basic college budget does not include what many would consider essential.</p>
<p>More important than those facts though, the point I want to make is that Khadijah, and other such students, do need to raise money beyond what the colleges give them, even if they get “full financial aid.”</p>
<p>"In an earlier post, I said that Harvard itself should provide extra support for a student such as this, that admissions loves students who have “overcome obstacles,” but once on campus, these same students may need supports that the institution does not yet provide. In this case, tutoring and some extra funds for books etc. would be an example. Accommodations for chronic illness or learning disabilities would be another need for many students. "</p>
<p>Harvard does have extra funds available for students who need emergency money, etc.</p>
<p>There also are tutoring services available. </p>
<p>Something like 96% of students who enter Harvard graduate from Harvard in 6 years. A student like Kadijah who has overcome enormous challenges to get to Harvard certainly has the ability, work ethic and character to graduate from Harvard. I doubt that she would need some kind of special program in order to succeed at Harvard. In fact, compared to the challenges she already has faced, I think that in many respects, Harvard will be smooth sailing for her.</p>
<p>The students who may have a harder time are those who got the ECs and grades for Harvard because lives previously had been micromanaged by well heeled parents.</p>
<p>Northstarmom,</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it really doesn’t work that way. The skills required to succeed on the streets and in poor neighborhoods are not the same skills required to succeed at Harvard. While Khadijah and other low income students have overcome incredible obstacles to get to schools like Harvard, those obstacles usually don’t provide the preparation for success at Harvard. It is hardly smooth sailing, and low income students are still less likely to graduate than others (of course given that most Harvard students will eventually graduate). Such students have big gaps in their education and skills. Their peers, while coddled by parents with resources, have developed <em>precisely</em> the kind of skills and preparation valued at Harvard. In addition, Harvard really has a sink-or-swim mentality when it comes to students. I have been a part of the Harvard community for over 30 years and I am still stunned at how little Harvard does for students from non-traditional backgrounds. While tutoring is available, it is rather costly ($15/hr) and is usually not covered by financial aid. These students really do it through sheer force of will. I can’t tell you how impressed with student like Khadijah.</p>
<p>Totally agree, Nancy Grant. Would just add that some of the house deans are very helpful.</p>
<p>“. I have been a part of the Harvard community for over 30 years and I am still stunned at how little Harvard does for students from non-traditional backgrounds. While tutoring is available, it is rather costly ($15/hr) and is usually not covered by financial aid. These students really do it through sheer force of will. I can’t tell you how impressed with student like Khadijah.”</p>
<p>That’s interesting. My Harvard classmates who came from low income backgrounds graduated from Harvard. Seems that Harvard would be easier for such students now because they don’t have to deal with the constant campus upheaval – protests, etc. – that my generation had to deal with. The administration was so busy dealing with things like that that my class got even less support than do most Harvard students.</p>
<p>I wish Kadijah well, and hope that she will find a home at Harvard.</p>
<p>"That’s interesting. My Harvard classmates who came from low income backgrounds graduated from Harvard. Seems that Harvard would be easier for such students now because they don’t have to deal with the constant campus upheaval – protests, etc. – that my generation had to deal with. "</p>
<p>I would just remind you that those low income and minority students would NEVER have been at Harvard were it not for those protests and campus upheaval.</p>
<p>I know. I also participated in many protests there.</p>
<p>Still, the fact that the protests were going on meant that that the administration was far less attentive to my class than it was to many others. I think of my class as the lost class. Decades later, many class members still hold a lot of anger about their experience at Harvard. My class had the largest class of black students, too, than Harvard had ever had. Being part of that was an experience in itself.</p>
<p>Okay, wait a second, so was I. What class were you at Harvard!</p>