Stanford and Harvard universities have expanded their financial aid programs to make a college education more affordable to students from lower-income families.

Stanford announced in March that it will not expect families with an annual income of less than $45,000 to pay any tuition.

Stanford’s financial aid policy will go into effect in the fall, said Karen Cooper, the school’s director of financial aid. This school year, families whose annual income is less than $45,000 pay an average of $2,650 toward educational costs, Cooper confirmed.

Cooper said the parents of these students will not have to pay for their children to attend Stanford starting September 2006, but students will still be expected to contribute through summer and school-year earnings and student loans.

Families with incomes of $45,000 to $60,000 will see their average payment cut down to $3,800.

Cooper said the changes had not been expected so soon.

“Last spring, our president said he wanted to move in this direction in the next five years,” she said. “We looked at the data and realized that we could do this starting this year.”

Cooper said the changes would affect about 1,100 new and returning students.

“We have seen low-income students who are well-prepared for college but are not applying to elite institutions at the same rate as their well-off peers,” she said. “It will allow us to reach the lower-income students.”

The changes will have an anticipated cost of $3 million for Stanford in the first year.

Cooper said she does not necessarily think all schools should adopt these policies.

“This just felt right for Stanford,” she said. “Not every school has the resources available.”

The policy will affect international students differently because Stanford is not need-blind in its admission decisions for international students, Cooper said.

Harvard has had a similar program since 2004. Students whose family’s incomes are $40,000 or less have no expected contribution to educational costs, and students with family incomes of $40,000 to $60,000 had their payments cut in half. On March 30, Harvard announced it would increase the threshold for no family contribution to $60,000. It also announced families with incomes of $60,000 to $80,000 would have their payments reduced by half.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers said in a news release that this plan will make Harvard more accessible to lower-income families.

“There is no more important mission for Harvard and higher education than promoting equality of opportunity for all,” Summers said.

Northwestern had 1395 students whose family income was less than $60,000 and received an NU scholarship in the 2004-2005 school year. For the last school year, the cost of attendance – cited in a previous DAILY article – was $39,582, and the average NU scholarship was about $20,000 for families with incomes less than $60,000, according to the NU financial aid Web site.

The maximum federal aid awarded by the government, including Perkins loans, Pell grants, subsidized Stafford loans, state grants and federal work-study, was about $17,338. With this data, family contributions averaged about $2,184.

Associate Provost for University Enrollment Michael Mills declined to comment for this article.

Reach Ketul Patel at [email protected].