<p>i hear you get free tuition if you are a farmer? Also, what constitutes a farmer? Can I just grow stuff in my yard and call myself a farmer? More ppl should use thsi farming thing. it sounds like a good loophole.</p>
<p>ofcourse you have to getinto harvard first but being a farmer erally pays off.
this is good because over the decades and even in the medieval times, farmers were looked down on. remember gladiator and rome? they were all looking down and killing farmers.</p>
<p>Hey A-san! - Harvard is NOT generous. Harvard is in business of making money. Apparently, the reason why they offer this program was that one of the alumni gave them a gift/financial contribution with the strict provision that the money must be earmarked for students with parental income up to 60K.</p>
<p>Remember the math is straight forward: for every student, who can't pay, there is a "middle class" family (like us), who got hit with a full tuition bill. And explain it to a senior who is holding an acceptance letter for his/her dream school, that maybe 2 weeks later, when the second letter comes (Financial Aid) you as a parent will not be able to send him/her to the college after all.</p>
<p>While the Harvard move is good news, there is a potential elephant in the room that universities don't mention in their PR: assets. It takes surprisingly little in terms of unsheltered assets to launch the family out of "need" into "able to pay".</p>
<p>hey how much would I have to pay if I have 5 siblings, 2 of which are already in college and if my dad makes 65k?</p>
<p>Very misleading. I am a single parent, make less than that, but because I have savings, my kid did not qualify for any financial aid.</p>
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Very misleading. I am a single parent, make less than that, but because I have savings, my kid did not qualify for any financial aid.
[/quote]
Exactly. If you manage to be thrifty, and what you think is prudent, it turns out not to be prudent if the savings aren't sheltered. And in principle this hits more the lower the income in the "middle class" range, as people tend not to spend money on financial advisors who know how to shelter savings.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>In the past decade, Harvard has reduced the median four-year debt for graduating seniors from more than $16,000 to $6,400 — less than one-third of the national average of $20,000.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Would like to know what the median 4 year debt of the PARENTS of Harvard grads is!</p>
<p>That's amazing. $60,000 is smack dab in the middle class. Wow...Harvard wants to make their acceptance rate even LOWER?</p>
<p>This may or may not lead to a lower admit rate or higher yield; what Harvard is doing is going after a sector of the population that has been least likely to apply to college and hardest to enroll even if they do apply: those in the lowest economic quadrant, that is heavily - although far from exclusively - Black and Hispanic.</p>
<p>does this free thing include only tuition or room and board as well?</p>
<p>The Harvard initiative is aimed at eliminating parental contribution to "the cost of education" for families below the threshold. The "cost of education" includes not only tuition but R & B as well.</p>
<p>The pages on the Harvard Web site about a the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative do a very good job of explaining the rationale for the newly announced policies. Scholars of college admission at Harvard and at other colleges have noticed that the academically lowest group of high school seniors among high-income families attends college at the same rate as the economically highest group among seniors from low-income families. In other words, over the past several decades wealth has been more decisive than academic ability in deciding which young people go on to college. Harvard's recent president, an economist, thinks that's appalling, and many in the Harvard administration want to make sure that no able student is deterred from applying to Harvard simply by Harvard's high list price. </p>
<p>Props to Princeton for initiating some of the first moves in the direction of highly selective colleges making CLEAR to low-income families that list price should be no reason not to apply and to enroll. Harvard is rising to the occasion by moving even more agressively in that direction.</p>
<p>I wish Cornell was like that, but hey maybe it'll follow suit lol!</p>
<p>Just wondering, but does this new low-income financial aid policy take money away from the middle/upper-middle class and give it to the poor?</p>
<p>Dude i wish i applied to expensive ivies now (i know i can't get in) but I'm so totally poor so i wouldn't have to pay anything... (30K~40K a year or something)</p>
<p>Isn't $60-80,000 tending towards the "middle class" if the median income nationally is $44,000?</p>
<p>People in my region of the country who have a family income of $60,000 annually are solidly in the middle class. On the one hand, they can eat, get housing, use a car, and pay taxes without undue worry, and, on the other hand, they couldn't dream of paying Harvard list price out of pocket.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Just wondering, but does this new low-income financial aid policy take money away from the middle/upper-middle class and give it to the poor?
[/quote]
No. Quite the opposite. It extends the aid upward.</p>
<p>I only pray that Yale and Princeton follow as well!</p>
<p>Leonard hits it on the head-I make about 70-75K per year, but my assets put it closer to 100K. My house was bought for about 330K about 5 years ago, but it is now worth over 700K with current market trends in CT and the work we have done to the house. I got basically no aid from any school.</p>