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...Harvard officials sent shock waves through academia last December by detailing a new financial-aid policy that will charge families making up to $180,000 just 10% of their household income per year, substantially subsidizing the annual cost of more than $45,600 for all but its wealthiest students. The move was just the latest in what has amounted to a financial-aid bidding war in recent years among the U.S.'s élite universities as they try to ease concerns over staggering tuition bills...
...Though Harvard's is the most generous to date, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale and Stanford have all launched similar plans to cap tuition contributions for students from low- and middle-income families. Indeed, students on financial aid at nearly every Ivy stand a good chance of graduating debt-free, thanks to loan-elimination programs introduced over the past five years. And other exclusive schools have followed their lead. Williams and Amherst colleges in Massachusetts, North Carolina's Davidson College and Virginia's William & Mary all replaced loans with grants and work-study aid starting last year. And several more schools...
...public and private universities now offer similar packages to state residents who are at or below the federal poverty level of $21,000 a year for a family of four. "Students' tuition, fees, food, books and a place to live are all covered in full," says Rick Shipman, financial aid director at Michigan State, which has offered a loan-replacement plan since 2005. "All they have to think about is learning when they're here...
...experts caution that families shouldn't expect to see most financial-aid packages rise to the level of Harvard's largesse anytime soon. Over the past few years, Congress has gotten fed up with wealthy schools hoarding their enormous endowments - Harvard's reached $35 billion last year - while still regularly raising tuition prices. The average tuition and fees at private four-year colleges rose 14% in the past five years, according to the nonprofit College Board; the increase was 31% at public schools. Fees themselves at many public universities are skyrocketing, even as tuition holds more or less steady...
...Although Harvard and other wealthy schools may appease legislators with more generous aid packages, the trickle-down effect might be minimal. Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert based in Pitsburgh, Pa., who runs the website Finaid.org, predicts that fewer than 5% of schools will do away with loans entirely. That's because the vast majority of schools don't have large endowments they can tap to supplement lower tuition revenue. Many still depend heavily on net tuition to pay for operating costs, including faculty salaries and facility maintenance. That may be especially true at public schools - which educate...