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John Harvard's Journal

Financial Aid Refigured

November-December 2011 [1]

[2] [3]
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Read more details on financial aid changes as well as on peer schools’ aid decisions  [5]

The College announced two significant changes to financial aid on September 1. As of September 2012, families with incomes below $65,000 will be able to send their children to Harvard at no parental cost, an increase from the current $60,000 ceiling (established in 2006); this change applies to returning undergraduates and those matriculating with the class of 2016. (According to a chart on the financial-aid website, close to 1,200 scholarship students now in the College are from families with incomes of $60,000 or less.)

At the same time, the expected parental contribution for newly enrolling students and their successors will grade up from 0 to 10 percent of income for families whose incomes fall between $65,000 and $150,000; the prior ceiling for this formula, introduced in late 2007, was $180,000. Those families in the range of $150,000 to $180,00 will, according to the news release, “be asked to pay slightly more than 10 percent of income”—grading up to 16.5 percent, an increase of as much as $11,700 in their annual bill compared to the prior formula. (According to the website, slightly fewer than 600 families of students now receiving scholarship aid have incomes from $140,000 to $180,000.)

The College’s financial-aid payout—$166 million this year—will likely increase even with the new scholarship parameters, given that the term bill for tuition, room, and board ($52,652 now) will continue to rise. Part of the aid, in turn, is funded by the unrestricted tuition funds the College collects. 

Read more details on financial aid changes as well as on peer schools’ aid decisions  [5]


Source URL: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2011/11/financial-aid-refigured?page=all

Links
[1] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2011/11
[2] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/print/33495?page=all
[3] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2011/11/financial-aid-refigured
[4] https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300
[5] http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/09/bending-the-curve-on-financial-aid