<p>She is not my friend she is my student. Clear distinction, in my part of the world ( Middle East) you cannot mix up a Muslim female / friend and a male professor. You are asking for trouble. She received funding as she explained it. However, it wasn’t sufficient. She wrote a wonderful personal essay about it for one of my classes. Quite eloquent. I get the feeling considering her parents background, from (Palestine, as refugees of some sort) that even 75% funding wouldn’t have been sufficient. And I am talking about living expenses, dorm etc. So full need as determined by Yale was not enough in this case. I think it was too much of a financial burden on her parents still. Not really concerned if you don’t buy it. I wrote a nice reference for her for grad school and watched her walk in graduation a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>Oh, and btw, I graduated with a large debt from Columbia despite financial aid.</p>