Poor parents won't have to pay for kids' Harvard education
About time. According to this New York Times story (registration required). I believe in contrast Princeton has already waived tuition for all undergraduates. [Correction: Princeton has removed all loans from its financial aid packages so that students/parents are not unnecessarily burdened with having to pay them back]. This came up as an important issue when twenty of us younger graduates met with President Larry Summers in San Francisco right as he was taking charge. Glad he's finally acting on it in some form.
Parents who earn less than $40,000 are now asked to contribute an average of $2,300. That figure will drop to zero under the new plan, which begins in the fall. Parents with incomes of $40,000 to $60,000 will have their contributions cut to an average of $2,250, from an average of $3,500.
...Only 7 percent of Harvard undergraduates are from families with earnings in the lowest quarter of American household incomes, and 16 percent are from the bottom half. Nearly three-quarters are from families with earnings in the top quarter.