<p>Soon Harvard will announce its admission decisions and send out financial aid offers to students eligible for financial aid. Following up on a suggestion by Laura</a> D'Andrea Tyson, after analysis of how effective earlier financial aid policies were, Harvard announced its Financial</a> Aid Initiative, indicating an intention to make Harvard affordable for every prospective student. </p>
<p>It's my impression that Harvard has succeeded in making undergraduate study at Harvard College really, truly affordable for applicants in all income ranges. I read online here on CC about families who think "Wow, I had no idea our estimated family contribution would be so high," but I never, ever hear of a family saying, "If we pay our EFC for Harvard, we'll have to stop making mortgage payments," much less "We won't be able to buy groceries if our child goes to Harvard." The families of some admitted students will have to pay out of pocket (not necessarily full list price) for their children to attend Harvard, under the Ivy League principle of scholarships based only on financial need, but no family is excluded from Harvard by cost. </p>
<p>Does this square with your understanding of current reality? I think there are still many families that only know about Harvard's list price, and don't know how affordable it is to all families from all over the world under current financial aid policies.</p>
<p>My D is a freshman there - the Financial Aid has been more generous than I would have ever anticipated. The only person I've heard of who thought she couldn't afford to go called the F.A. Office to express her regrets, and the office upped her award to the point that she decided to come after all.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how Harvard treats home equity? Our home is paid off and we live on the east coast. I have no trouble paying for a good portion of tuition but will need to take out loans for the rest. My problem with those loans is that H and I will be 4 years near retirement when D finishes college. Both H and I have physically demanding jobs and don't know if we can make it that long in our respective fields. Without having to explain too much we don't know anyone in our fields who do our kind of work at 65years old. </p>
<p>I am too proud to explain these things to a financial aid officer but I hope that they at least have common sense.</p>
<p>The short answer is that everything that you would think ought to matter in calculating financial aid awards does matter, but different colleges still differ from one another in how they weigh various factors in deciding what aid families need. All the reports I see here on CC, however, indicate that Harvard is as generous as colleges come in determining financial aid awards based on need.</p>
<p>I think the offers of admission, expected out this week, will include financial aid offers in most cases, so let's see what the reports are here about the affordability of Harvard this year.</p>
<p>I see xjayz has confirmed that a timely financial aid application should have a response included with the postal admission letter. So what do you think of your financial aid offer from Harvard?</p>
<p>I was a true believer in all of the above....until I started getting aid decisions. My family probably nets $80-$90 thousand a year....NO aid anywhere. Why? Because my dad is a farmer so he has lots of land and assets. Isn't it just a tad unreasonable to expect a guy to sell huge parts of his own business (the way he makes money in the first place) to put a kid through college? I guess not.</p>
<p>As postal mail brings financial aid offers from Harvard and from other colleges, which colleges are looking most affordable to your family? How does Harvard compare to other colleges with an announced policy of financial aid based on need?</p>
<p>Interesting! Yale offered nothing, UChicago offered nothing, but Harvard ended up offering $6000! I'd of course like more but it's quite comforting to know that I have a substantial offer in hand.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. I especially like hearing from families who get partial but not full awards--because the rap is that some colleges are unaffordable to the "middle class" between the rich and the poor.</p>
<p>Hard to say as each family has a different tolerance level no matter what the income. One family at $100k might think $10k is too much, another might thing $15k is too much, and so on. Alot depends on the other options like state school tuition. It has been afordable for our family for 2 years so far. Harvard worked with us to make sure they were competitive with any other school we might consider. It's cheaper than UTexas would be living in Austin.</p>