Nearly 20 Percent of Freshmen Received Financial Aid 'Startup' Grants

Roughly 20 percent of freshmen began the school year with $1,000 “startup” grants from the Financial Aid Office as part of a three-year pilot program, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67.

Fitzsimmons said all current freshmen from families with incomes of $65,000 or less have received the grants, which he said he hopes will give students the freedom to pursue extracurricular activities, unpaid internships, and summer opportunities that they may not otherwise be able to afford.

Eligible freshmen received $1,000 at the start of the fall semester and will collect another $1,000 in the spring.

“Not only does it give you financial freedom, but it also gives you some psychological freedom,” Fitzsimmons said. “I think in a lot of ways it helps to level the playing field between students from my kind of background, who have no money coming into here, and students from middle income families and above.”

The grants are funded by a $25 million donation, announced this summer, from Timothy R. Barakett ’87 and his wife Michele Barakett to bolster the College’s financial aid and varsity hockey program.

Barakett, a first-generation college student and recipient of financial aid while at Harvard, currently serves as co-chairman of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences portion of Harvard’s record-breaking capital campaign, which has amassed more than $7 billion since its launch in September 2013. He also chairs the campaign's financial aid initiative.

As of Sept. 1, Harvard has raised $460 million towards undergraduate financial aid but remains $140 million short of the FAS goal. Last August, the financial aid priority had raised $386 million out of the $600 million goal.

Fitzsimmons emphasized that financial aid is a “key component of the capital campaign, the largest component for FAS,” and added that alumni generally have had a “very positive reaction” to the startup grants.

“There’s been a lot of interest expressed by alumni and alumnae for the startup grants, a lot of praise for Tim Barakett’s thoughtfulness and generosity in doing this,” Fitzsimmons said.

Sophie T. Carroll ’17, a student coordinator for the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, said some freshmen who received the grant have told HFAI coordinators they have felt “encouraged.”

“I think more than anything, it was just a show of support from Harvard and from the Financial Aid Office in particular that demonstrated to them that Harvard really means what it says,” Carroll said.

According to The Crimson’s annual survey of the freshman class, roughly 57 percent of surveyed freshmen reported receiving some sort of financial aid, and of those 14.5 percent reported coming from homes with family incomes below $40,000. In addition, 15.8 percent of the surveyed freshman class reported being first-generation college students.

The startup grants will be available to the classes of 2021 and 2022 as part of the three-year pilot program. Administrators will later evaluate the program to determine whether it will continue.

—Staff writer Brittany N. Ellis can be reached at brittany.ellis@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @britt_ellis10.