A Year After Harvard, Yale Expands Aid

Yale unveiled plans yesterday for a revised financial aid policy that reduces costs for low-income families—a program nearly identical to the plan Harvard introduced one year ago.

The revamped Bulldog benefits will waive parental contributions from families earning less than $45,000 in annual income. The plan will also reduce termbills for families earning between $45,000 and $60,000 per year.

“We want to attract the most promising students from all economic backgrounds to Yale,” Yale President Richard C. Levin said in a statement.

The announcement comes almost one year to the day after Harvard enacted changes in its own financial aid policy. Byerly Hall now guarantees a free education for students with parents earning less than $40,000 annually, and has reduced costs for families with annual incomes between $40,000 and $60,000.

Yale’s new program will cost the University about five percent of the Bulldogs’ projected financial aid budget, amounting to $3 million. Harvard’s initiative cost the College $2 million, about two percent of its total aid budget.

Families who qualify for full exemptions will save about $2,000 annually with the new program, said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy. Harvard’s system works out to about the same amount.

Conroy said the Eli plan will affect “hundreds of families,” but declined to provide exact figures. He said the number of students who will qualify for increased aid under the new policy is “in the double digits” percentage-wise.

Just under fifty percent of Harvard undergraduates receive some form of aid from the College, compared to forty percent of Elis. The schools use different formulae in determining aid packages.

Under the new plan, Yale will also fund annual trips home for international students. Last month, the school also announced a grant program to sponsor summer activities for students on financial aid.

“Any time a college makes a change of this sort it essentially makes the American dream more attainable,” said William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, dean of undergraduate admissions at the College. “It’s a very good message that goes out across the country. I think all of higher education is a winner.”

Fitzsimmons said Harvard has no plans at this time to match Yale’s $45,000 threshold. “We’ll continue to treat each family individually,” he said. “It isn’t a cut and dry thing, the way those intervals make it look.”

STUDENT VOICES

The changes come days after members of a Yale student group staged a sit-in at the school’s undergraduate admissions office. The group, the Undergraduate Organizing Committee, has been lobbying for a more expansive aid policy since last fall.

“I think that student pressure has been crucial in bringing us to this point,” said junior Josh R. Eidelson, a member of the group.

But Conroy said student feedback at an open forum held on campus last week held greater sway in shaping the policy shift.

“The sit-in had zero impact,” Conroy said.

Yale Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw instead cited the Yale student government as the “major voice in terms of our consideration from the student side.”

Yalies on aid will still be expected to pay an annual student contribution of nearly $6,000, a move Eidelson called “disappointing.”

“It really is a question not of possibility, but of priorities,” Eidelson said. “We’re going to continue to push for a smaller student contribution.”

Shaw said the policy was not likely to change for the next academic year.

PATH TO REFORM

Levin said last week at the open forum that Yale didn’t “want to be left behind,” a reference to Harvard’s program and Princeton’s decision four years ago to eliminate student loans.

But four months ago, changes to the Bulldogs’ policy didn’t appear likely. Levin told students last November that Yale had reviewed Harvard’s changes in aid policy and decided not to enact a similar program.

“The fact is for families [earning] under $40,000, the parental contribution is very small,” Levin said, according to the Yale Daily News. “It’s not clear this is our highest priority move.”

At a separate November forum, Levin called Princeton’s elimination of student loans a “PR move” and claimed that Harvard’s plan only saved low-income earning students $500 in tuition fees, the YDN reported.

Bruce Breimer, college counselor at the Collegiate School in New York, said that Yale faced the possibility of falling behind its peer institutions.

“There was a lot of pressure on them to do it. There was a lot written on the fact that Yale was lagging behind the others,” Breimer said.

Yale was the only Ivy to see a decrease in applicants this year, with Harvard and Princeton both recording double-digit gains. But Breimer warned against connecting the numbers with aid policy.

“When you take a one-year skew, it can be very aberrant for a variety of reasons too numerous to mention,” Breimer said.

—Staff writer Michael M. Grynbaum can be reached at grynbaum@fas.harvard.edu.