AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: Aided by huge endowment, Harvard boosts financial aid

The Associated Press Harvard will raise financial assistance for undergraduates by 20 percent, including an extra $2,000 a year for present and future recipients, the university announced Wednesday. The decision, effective immediately, will benefit about half of the school's 6,600 undergraduates, who receive an average of $15,000 in scholarship grants. About 70 percent of Harvard undergraduates currently get some financial aid, and 47 percent of students get aid that includes annual grants. Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all augmented their financial aid programs in the past year. Harvard has an endowment of almost $13 billion, the largest of any university in the country, and expects to raise at least $2 billion in a current fund drive. The Boston Globe said Harvard plans to spend 3.72 percent of its endowment this year, compared with a national average of 4.2 percent for private colleges. Harvard officials estimated its financial aid budget for the coming year will be more than $90 million, of which $53 million will be in scholarship grants. Harvard officials said the new aid will help make the school accessible and affordable for everyone, and will ease pressure on students who must work or are financially distracted from their studies. ''Our main concern in making these changes is to keep the doors of Harvard College open to students from different backgrounds, whatever their financial means,'' Harvard President Neil Rudenstine told The New York Times. The cost of attending Harvard as an undergraduate is about $31,132 a year and most students who receive financial aid grants owe $15,000 to $20,000 by the time they graduate. Under the new program, undergraduates will be allowed to use the full amounts of outside scholarships for themselves. Currently, students must use most of that money to offset the aid packages they receive from Harvard.