Financial Aid at Ivies

Paying for College
1

<p>The ivies are making a real effort to make college affordable. Your definition of affordable and mine may vary by a lot, but these programs are great, and they help a lot of kids.</p>

<p>The average middle class family where both parents work (even two incomes of $60,000 each will push most families out of eligibility for the largest grants/scholarships) does not benefit that much.</p>

<p>But the poorest students, whose parents may not even have the credit or collateral to take out a loan for their education can benefit a lot.</p>

<p>Here are a sampling of programs at a few Ivy League colleges that benefit the poorest incoming students:</p>

<p>In Columbia’s OPUS program (<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/asp/programs/[/url]”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/asp/programs/&lt;/a&gt;) participants receive the following services:
-Full financial aid covering tuition, room, and board.
-Academic, personal, career, and financial counseling.
-Professional and peer mentoring programs.
-Individualized/group tutorial services.
-Semester book allowance</p>

<p>Harvard’s recently announced changes: <a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/...30-finaid.html[/url]”>A look inside: Currier House — Harvard Gazette. A work-study/summer savings contribution is obviously still at work here, but I believe that contribution is only for books/extra expenses.</p>

<p>Dartmouth’s projected loan levels for their class of 2010: <a href=“Home | Financial Aid”>Home | Financial Aid; For those whose families earn less than $75,000 annually the loan component is AT MOST about $17,000 FOR FOUR YEARS. The cost for one year at Darmouth is over $45,000.</p>

<p>Princeton has a ‘no loan’ policy: <a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/04/0830_aid/hmcap.html[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/04/0830_aid/hmcap.html&lt;/a&gt; Of course there is, as a result, a lot of work study/summer savings involved for some kids.</p>

<p>Most of these programs are supplemented by work study/summer work contributions. BUT the majority of them guarantee a debt-free graduation for students below a certain income bracket $60,000 at Harvard and a varying amount between $50,000 and $30,000 at Columbia depending on the number of dependants.</p>

<p>I hope this helps those who are apprehensive about applying to certain schools because they are worried that their needs will not be met.</p>

2

<p>Penn & Stanford also has low income initiatives
Amherst has adopted a no loan policy effectiver this year
Brown increases grant aid and waives work study freshman year</p>

3

<p>In our experience, they have decent aid for middle class students, too. When our income dropped, they awarded a good-sized grant, along with subsidized loan and work study, even though my S was going into his senior year and had never qualified for grant money at all before. I am very satisfied with the level of commitment (this is Columbia; I am sure it would have been the same at all of them.)</p>

4

<p>My impression too is that a lot of parents who think they are “middle class” (certainly not food-stamp poor, or Pell Grant poor) still qualify for a LOT of aid from Ivy League colleges. After all, list price is very expensive, and not a lot of families can pay list price without gasping. Check the financial aid estimators at Princeton </p>

<p><a href=“https://sweb.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/FinAid/finaid_form.pl[/url]”>https://sweb.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/FinAid/finaid_form.pl&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>and at Dartmouth </p>

<p><a href=“Home | Financial Aid”>Home | Financial Aid; </p>

<p>to get a reasonable estimate of what your family EFC will be at those two Ivy League colleges–you may be pleasantly surprised.</p>

5

<p>Not only do they provide substantial aid in the upper middle class, Harvard in particular has improved it’s aid package in subsequent years for us. Junior year is substantially better than freshman year package with no downturn in income.</p>