While confidentiality prevents me from revealing further details, one thing is certain. If Harvard low balled their financial aid offers to these families, it is safe to assume there are others who have had the crimson pulled over their eyes. I welcome any Harvard family, and since we’re on the subject, any other college or college-bound family, to contact me for a financial analysis to determine if they too were short changed and if there is any way to obtain additional financial aid. (There usually is.)

Over the past ten years, prompted by the leadership of former president, Neil L. Rudenstine, Harvard’s grant appropriations have increased 143 percent, and in 2008 and beyond, more than 90 percent of Harvard families will qualify for what appears, on the surface, to be a most generous financial aid program. Two-thirds of the students currently attending receive some form of financial aid and need-based scholarship aid is awarded to half of them. This brings Harvard’s total aid assistance for 2008 to more than $98 million – Less than ½ of 1% of the total funds they have available.

Fact is, Harvard has so much money it could actually pay the tuition for the entire student body for the next 100 years and still have millions of dollars left!

So, let the borrower beware. Before you canonize America’s most sought after college for taking up the financial aid torch, remember that while the lyric may be new, we’ve all heard that tune before, and it ain’t necessarily so.

Do the math. Appeal unappealing award offers, and take no grant for granted. Trust should never be a gift – it should be earned, every year a student is in school…

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