Harvard College just made a game-changing announcement: it’s expanding its financial aid. If your family makes $100,000 or less per year, congratulations—you get to attend Harvard for free! If your family makes $200,000 or less, do not worry—you still get a piece of the pie, because your tuition will be fully covered. For a lot of students, this means college may be easier to navigate. This expansion marks a significant step towards a more inclusive Harvard, rendering it more affordable to more students than ever before. Sounds amazing, right? Well… yes, but not entirely.
Harvard’s 3.2% acceptance rate makes getting in the hard part—until it isn’t. What happens after the confetti settles and you step foot on campus? For many low-income students, tuition isn’t the only barrier. The real challenge lies in the hidden costs—those that financial aid doesn’t cover—that make navigating higher education more complicated. It’s about tackling imposter syndrome in lecture halls, competing with classmates who always seem ten steps ahead, figuring out where you belong in a sea of overachievers, and learning how to fit in at a place that relies on networking. Getting in is one thing, but figuring out how to thrive? Well, that’s a whole different challenge.
Yes, Harvard will cover your classes, dorm, and dining hall meals, but assuming that’s all it takes to succeed is naïve. Money can’t fix everything. The social and academic gaps between low-income, public-school-educated students and their wealthy, private-school counterparts are real. The latter arrive on campus with an inherent advantage: insider knowledge on how to navigate elite institutions, built-in networking connections, and years of preparation for the academic rigor Harvard demands.
Harvard offers resources to help students succeed, but the reality is that many students don’t know they exist or feel too uncomfortable asking for help. For those struggling with imposter syndrome, reaching out can feel like admitting defeat, especially in an environment where self-sufficiency isn’t encouraged—but expected.
But beyond academics, there’s the social side of Harvard—one that can be just as challenging to navigate. Harvard isn’t just about its rigorous coursework; it’s also about finding your place in an elite social ecosystem that wasn’t necessarily designed for everyone. Students from wealthy, private school backgrounds often arrive with built-in cultural capital—the unspoken knowledge of how to network, move through elite spaces, and fit in. Not to mention, many private school students come in knowing at least one other person, whether it be a sibling or a friend who had gone to the same preparatory school. Meanwhile, many low-income students often navigate these spaces alone with an underlying fear of exclusion, constantly aware of the invisible barriers that make belonging feel just out of reach.
Even after crossing this social divide, many low-income students never feel completely at ease. The financial barriers remain—sometimes in ways that are harder to see but just as difficult to navigate. Social events, extracurricular clubs, and networking activities often come with hidden social costs that aid doesn’t always cover: club dues, professional conference fees, or the price of a dinner out with friends. At the end of the day, economic disparities still shape student life, subtly reinforcing divisions between those who can afford to fully participate and those who can’t.
That being said, Harvard’s robust financial aid program has been transformative. Doors that were before shut to many students are now finally pried open, and the possibility of attending an elite institution—once unimaginable for some—is now a reality.
Currently, about 55% of Harvard undergraduates receive financial aid and roughly 25% attend on full aid. With the program’s recent expansion, even more incoming and current students will receive financial assistance. According to an article in the Harvard Gazette, “The expansion will enable approximately 86 percent of U.S. families to qualify for Harvard College’s financial aid.”
The expansion’s main goal is to promote diversity and inclusion. “We know the most talented students come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and experiences, from every state and around the globe,” stated William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, Harvard College’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, in an interview with the Gazette.
However, Taylor Thorne ’28 questions the effectiveness of this expansion: “I don’t think that this initiative is completely meeting their goal of trying to expand the diversity here [Harvard] and allow more opportunities for different groups of people, because expanding the financial aid is just going to benefit those people who already had an opportunity and an awareness that they could get into the school in the first place,” she stated.
The students this financial aid expansion is supposed to target—those from underfunded public schools where overworked counselors (if they even exist) struggle to provide college guidance—are left behind before applications even open up. These are the students who never even looked toward Harvard because no one told them it was within their reach. By the time financial aid even enters the conversation, the real gatekeeping has already occurred. No amount of tuition coverage can undo the years of lost opportunities that keep these students from applying in the first place. The real barriers to higher education aren’t just tuition costs; they are years of systemic inequalities in education that determine who even sees Harvard as an option.
If Harvard truly wants to make its education accessible and ensure that all students thrive, it needs to address more than just affordability—it must consider the student experience as a whole. Programs like the First-Year Retreat and Experience pre-orientation and the Harvard First Generation Program offer mentorship and resources to help first-generation and low-income students navigate the transition to an elite college. These are important steps, but they are not enough.
Harvard must also recognize that social integration is just as critical as academic success because students need to feel a sense of belonging to excel; the two go hand in hand. Yes, Harvard’s financial aid expansion was a necessary game-changer for a lot of families and students, but it does not guarantee success once a student sets foot on campus. If Harvard truly wants to level the playing field, it needs to invest in outreach programs for students in disadvantaged high schools and provide more funding for social integration programs.
Until Harvard fully addresses the social, academic, and structural challenges that first-generation and low-income students face, financial aid will remain a band-aid solution to a much deeper systemic problem. This expansion is an important step in the fight for true accessibility—but it cannot be the last.
Jocelyne Delgado ’28 (jidelgado@college.harvard.edu) is very happy to see Harvard’s efforts towards accessibility.