<p>compmom,</p>
<p>I don’t want to play one-upmanship with you because I have very specific information about both Harvard financial aid and Khadijah. Harvard will give full financial aid without loans but those packages (including Khadijah’s) include $3400 of work-study and $1200 of summer work for a total of $4600 (for a sophomore, it gets higher as a junior or senior). For a student like Khadijah, who must devote more time to her studies, that work obligation is extremely difficult to meet (about 12 hours a week of work) and Harvard will loan her that money. So, although in theory Harvard has gives packages without loans, the reality is that for low-income students, work is often replaced with loans. In addition, tutoring is an additional expense not covered in the standard Harvard budget and which requires an additional application with no assurance of getting it. While Harvard’s budget does include an allowance for books and travel, it does not allow more than two roundtrips, so a student like Khadijah rarely gets home (and where does she stay?) My point is that your assertion that Khadijah (and other such students) is financially covered by Harvard’s financial aid is woefully incorrect and some fundraising is appropriate to a student in Khadijah’s situation.</p>
<p>Secondly, it is clear that Khadijah’s mom moved from shelter to shelter to avoid child welfare authorities in order to keep her children out of foster care. I am not arguing that it is a good strategy, only that it is what she did it “successfully” for much of Khadijah’s life. It is likely that it will not work as well for her younger sister.</p>