No ceilings
Two years after graduating from Harvard University, Patty Rincon already has worked as an advocate for prisoners’ rights and completed a service stint with AmeriCorps. Harvard’s ethos helped to guide her toward public service, she said. But what made that goal possible for the young woman, whose parents lost their jobs as she was applying to colleges, was the financial aid she received from the University as an undergraduate. Now she’s applying to law school, setting her sights on a career in civil rights or criminal justice. “If I was in a lot of debt because of college, I don’t know if I’d be in a position to go to law school and pursue that kind of job,” she said. In 2004, Harvard announced an initiative to make the University more accessible to low-income families by expanding recruitment and eliminating expected parental contributions for eligible students. Since then, more than 1,900 students have...