Creating a more diverse Harvard with need-blind financial aid
This is the fifth and final installment in Learning from Difference, a series on diversity at Harvard. When Brandon Buell applied to Harvard, he expected to be rejected. But here’s the twist: He got in. “I wanted to apply to one school that seemed like a real reach just so I could get rejected, move on to some other school, and never have to wonder ‘What if?’” said Buell ’20. “Harvard wasn’t even on my radar. I don’t think it was until I was accepted that I truly considered Harvard a possibility.” Often, though, getting into college and paying for it are two very different challenges, particularly for a kid like Buell, whose parents are factory workers and whose grandparents were dairy farmers. But that’s where Harvard’s Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) comes in. Announced by then-President Lawrence Summers in 2004 and later expanded under President Drew Faust, HFAI was intended to open the College’s doors...