This is an amazing story that should send chills down the spine of many liberal arts colleges and big state and private universities that have been raising tuition and cutting programs in recent years. Harvard University is planning on offering FREE tuition to students whose families make less than $40,000. For those students whose parents make between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, there will be a big boost in financial aid. I support this completely. Students who come from middle class families are often denied the ability to achieve higher education or end up saddled with massive student loan debt which keeps them locked into the middle class for years to come. It’s about time a university stepped up and made a difference. From the article:

Summers cited new research that shows there are 25 times as many students from the top-income quarter as the bottom at the nation’s 146 most selective public and private schools.

Along with eliminating the average $2,300 expected contribution from low-income students’ families, Harvard also announced that students whose parents earn from $40,000 to $60,000 will receive a substantial increase in aid.

Tuition, room, board and fees at Harvard cost $37,928 this year.

Brown, a junior, said he and other students have been paying their parents’ share of tuition because they didn’t want to ask them for money.

Harvard also plans to more aggressively recruit low-income students, making sure they know they can afford to attend college. Low-income families often overestimate the cost of attending a university, new federal research shows.

“Too often, outstanding students from families of modest means do not believe that college is an option for them, much less an Ivy League university,” Summers said at the recent meeting of the American Council on Education in Miami, according to a transcript published by Harvard. “Our doors have long been open to talented students regardless of financial need, but many students simply do not know or believe this. We are determined to change both the perception and the reality.”