An aerial shot of Stanford University
Stanford University just revised its financial aid policy, and
it's fantastic:
If a student's parents make less than $125,000 per year, and if they have assets of less than $300,000, excluding retirement accounts, the parents won't be expected to pay anything toward their children's Stanford tuition. Families with incomes lower than $65,000 won't have to contribute to room and board, either.
Students themselves will have to pay up to $5,000 each year from summer earnings, savings, and part-time work. There's no rule that parents can't cover their students' required contribution.
This policy will give many people the opportunity to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities who otherwise would not have been able to afford it. Unfortunately, most colleges are unable to make tuition this affordable. So how does Stanford do it?
Stanford enrolls a high proportion of wealthy students, who pay higher tuition that helps subsidize lower-income peers. And Stanford is one of the world's richest universities, with an endowment of $21 billion.
Hope other wealthy private universities will follow suit. Kudos to Stanford University!
Read more details in Stanford's announcement here.