Harvard Steps Up Financial Aid

Harvard is rolling out a new financial aid initiative intended to assist more affluent families after a series of measures designed to help lower-income students. Families making more than $180,000 a year will pay significantly less under the new rules, the Boston Globe reports, and students will no longer be expected to take out loans as part of their aid packages.

"What you see here is a real commitment to try to identify a response to an enormous stress a particular group of families feels about the cost of higher education,” said the university's president, Drew Faust. By adding more than 20% to its financial aid budget, Harvard becomes the most generous of the country's top-tier private schools, the New York Times reports. (More Harvard stories.)