Financial Aid Will Not Change This Semester

In the last two months, a near-revolution in university financial aid has swept four of U.S. News & World Report's top six colleges into increased generosity.

It appears now that Harvard will not make five, at least not during this admissions season.

University Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles and Director of Financial Aid James S. Miller confirmed this week that no similar financial aid changes are expected this term.

All three affirmed the University's commitment to a policy of need-blind admissions and repeated Harvard's pledge to make competitive offers under its current aid system this spring.

Since late January, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and MIT have reduced family or student contributions and made up the difference in outright grants.

Harvard officials have responded by promising a thorough review of the University's methods of determining need and offering aid.

Miller said yesterday that this review--in reality, an end-of-year analysis performed every summer--would not commence until after the end of the school year.

"We will, as we do every year, review the viability of our aid programs...over the course of the summer," Miller said in an e-mail. "Clearly, given the changes in aid programs at other schools we'll be looking at aid issues with heightened sensitivity."

Miller said this review would come to some conclusion before the end of the summer, in time for Byerly Hall's recruiters to begin their visits to high schools across the country.

Fineberg and Knowles agreed that some decision would be reached in time for next year's admissions season.

Fineberg said those who would actually perform the review--financial aid and admissions officers, as well as other officials--were currently preoccupied with admissions decisions.

Without a decision on financial aid this term, Harvard will still offer many of its first-years more generous aid packages in the face of stepped-up competition.

Current students, however, will for the most part find their aid unchanged--even as their counterparts at Stanford, Yale and MIT may have their family contributions, loans or work-study requirements lightened by thousands of dollars.

"[This] is pretty much what I expected," said Omar A. Nazem '01. "The administration tends not to cave to the demands of students or other schools."

Nazem predicted that student demands for more generous aid would soon combine with competition from other schools to pressure the college into change.

"For the time being, they don't have to change, but I think student demands are going to become stronger as the offers from other schools become more competitive," he said. "Then [the University] will have to make a change."

Anil K. Soni '98 said he wished the University would at least better explain its unwillingness to change.

"At the very least, Harvard should justify [not making changes] to its students," Soni said. "If they did show us that, I'd be satisfied. [Now] they're just saying they're not going to change."