Harvard has always been highly selective. With its high tuition and rigorous entrance exams, not everyone can go there. Though the University has worked to open its gates to more students, the median family income at Harvard is currently about $150,000. A new policy aims to make Harvard more accessible.

Despite steep tuition hikes at Harvard and nationwide, Harvard will be free for students whose parents earn less than $40,000 and greatly reduced for those earning between $40,000 to $60,000, according to a broad financial aid initiative announced on Feb. 30 by Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers.

The announcement comes at a time of concern at many colleges, including Brandeis, over the ever-widening wealth gap between students attending the country's most prestigious colleges and those who cannot afford to.

Aware of Harvard's new financial aid plan, Jean Eddy, Brandeis' senior vice president for students and enrollment, said in a telephone interview that the subject of rising income gap among students is important. But, she said that Brandeis does not have the financial resources and endowments to carry out such a plan.

"In 'leveling the playing field,' we do as well as our endowment allows," Eddy said.

No direct change in Brandeis' financial aid policy has occurred as a result of Harvard's new initiative, according to an e-mail from Director of Financial Aid Peter Giumette. Other schools' polices do influence Brandeis "to the extent that we try to maintain some sort of parity with our competition," Giumette said.

An April 22 article from the New York Times titled "As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, New Efforts to Level the Field" cites recent data showing that students from upper income families greatly outnumber those from the middle class in America's top colleges. According to the Times, "more fathers of freshmen are doctors than are hourly workers, teachers, clergy members, farmers or members of the military-combined."

In an interview with The Justice, Sally Donahue, director of Harvard financial aid, said that the initiative, a culmination of a five-year national study on the issue of affordability of education, addresses the rising income gap and tells students from low to moderate-income families that Harvard is an institution they can afford.

"We are pleased to take a leadership position on this issue," Donahue said.

In addition to cutting tuition completely for Harvard parents earning under $40,000, the initiative also cuts yearly tuition bills by about $1,250 for families with a parental income between $40,000 and $60,000. Members of this second bracket currently pay on average $3,500 according to The Harvard Crimson.

The difference, which will affect about 1,000 incoming and returning students, will take the form of an increase in the scholarship section of a student's financial aid package. Harvard's annual scholarship budget has been increased by $2 million, Donahue said.

Harvard is the first to eliminate contributions from parents earning less than $40,000. Yet, according to the Times, other schools such as the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Virginia have instituted policies that attempt to equalize costs for lower and middle income students.

"Many people who work in financial aid, both at Harvard and at Brandeis and other colleges care about the affordability of college to all students," Donahue said. She added that many schools are trying to increase their scholarship budgets in order to accommodate students who cannot afford to pay tuition.

"Each school determines individually what they are able to offer in financial aid based on their resources and the population of students attending their institutions," Giumette said. He emphasized that Brandeis strives, though not always successfully, to meet all of a family's financial aid need. Also, he said that Brandeis offers merit-based scholarships, while Harvard does not.

Eddy said Brandeis does as well as possible with the available resources.

"This is an example of an institution with a large endowment having the opportunity to do some wonderful things," Eddy said.

She added that Brandeis must be more "creative" than Harvard when compiling financial aid packages.

Two-thirds of Brandeis students receive financial aid and 17 percent of students receive merit-based aid, according to statistics from the Office of Financial Aid.

"It's not really a dramatically new approach," Giumette said about the Harvard policy. "The only new thing about it is that a family would know upfront what they're qualified for.

"I think that there are some families that cannot even imagine that they can get most of their tuition covered through financial aid," Giumette said. "I'm willing to bet Brandeis families who earn less than 40,000 dollars would get close to getting all of their tuition covered anyhow through scholarships and grants."

Another serious issue facing University officials is helping economically disadvantaged students meet schools' admissions criteria, as those students often do not possess the same resources-college counselors, for example-available to students in higher income families.

Thus, even if college was free, some students cannot gain admission in the first place.

"We can handle through our financial aid process for the talented student who meets our admission standards but who has high need," Giumette said. "So, the bigger issue is that performance on standardized testing is closely correlated to the socioeconomic conditions of the student."

Donahue made a similar point. "We often assume that students nationwide know that they need to take standardized tests such as SATs," he said, "but many families that do not have access to such resources such as good guidance counselors do not know this."

Donahue said that this year, Harvard implemented a strategy that utilizes ZIP code data about an applicant's neighborhood to ensure that the Class of 2008 represents a broad range of socioeconomic diversity.

"If that ZIP code was flagged as socieconomically disadvantaged, it made sure that we took that into consideration when we were taking into consideration all their other additional qualifications," Donahue explained.

"It's incumbent upon us to let students know about our academics and also about our financial aid policies," Eddy said, "so that students can feel that this is a possibility and that they can do this.