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| Rick Mahoney with three Bissell scholars |
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The
vitality of the Harkness classroom depends on
exceptional, ambitious students, and on the multiplicity
of life stories they bring to the table. As Assistant
Principal and former Dean of Admissions Tom Hassan
points out, "The phrase 'youth from every quarter'
implies socioeconomic, as well as geographic diversity.
It is critical to Exeter and our Harkness pedagogy
that we have voices from many different perspectives
and backgrounds represented around the table."
The
Academy has long been committed to working with
families to enable students destined for the Harkness
experience to partake regardless of financial
means. A major goal of the Academy Master Plan
review has been to ensure that adequate resources
continue to be available to attract top students.
This has meant thinking about financial aid in
new and creative ways.
Rick
Mahoney, director of financial aid, is pleased
that the trustees have tried to grow Exeter's
financial aid budget in conjunction with increases
in tuition. Rick notes, "As tuition has gone up
in proportion to the economy, so has financial
aid." Awarding aid to more students is also a
policy the Academy has adopted. "In 1980," says
Rick, "27 percent of students were on financial
aid. In 2001, 35 percent of our students are receiving
financial aid."
The
policy of awarding aid to greater numbers of Exeter
students was spurred by a wave of concern in the
early 1990s that families in the middle-income
bracket were being squeezed out of the independent
school picture. Comparing financial aid data from
the 1990s to data from a similar study conducted
35 years earlier, the trustees confirmed that
middle-income students were indeed less well represented
at Exeter than in the post-WWII years. The comparison
prompted trustees to implement what is known as
the "Middle Income Initiative," which employed
a new needs analysis for all families and raised
$40 million for additional scholarship resources.
As a result of the initiative, the Academy was
able to increase the number of students receiving
aid without shifting resources away from any one
group.
Despite
the success of the Middle Income Initiative, providing
adequate financial assistance is still a stretch.
So much so, in fact, that after scholarship funds
were depleted for the 1999-2000 admissions season,
there were approximately 30 compelling candidates
to whom aid could not be offered. "If this trend
continues," notes Rick, "it could end up limiting
the diversity and quality of the student body."
"A
better scenario," says Rick, "would be to increase
further the number of students to whom we allocate
resources." Currently, he explains, approximately
40 percent of Exeter's qualified applicant pool
needs scholarship aid. The ideal would be to enable
each of these kids to experience Exeter.
In
striving to achieve this ideal, Exeter will seek
to raise the funds necessary to remove financial
need as a materially significant factor in the
admissions process, based on its current applicant
pool. This would move the percentage of students
receiving aid to approximately 40 percent.
Such
a move would require Exeter to raise between $25
and $27.5 million in new financial aid resources.
Fortunately, alumni/ae and friends of the Academy
have a long and generous history of commitment
to financial aid. "In an ideal world," says Rick,
"our endowment would fund the entire financial
aid budget, because that would guarantee stability
over time."
Financial
aid doesn't just take the form of grants for tuition.
Rick has a budget line to assist students with
travel expenses, and gifts from the extended Academy
family have allowed him to help kids spontaneously
with other needs. It is these gifts, explains
Rick, that carry Exeter forward by connecting
alumni/ae and students. "What's fun for me in
this office," he says with a smile, "is that everyone
has his or her own story. Sometimes it's the alum
who's making a gift and sometimes it's the student
who's on the receiving end. This office is constantly
putting these stories together. That's when you
put a human face on financial aid, and that's
the real essence of it. Every girl or boy who
comes here is another chapter in the story."
"What's
fun for me in this office is that everyone has
his or her own story. Sometimes it's the alum
who's making a gift and sometimes it's the student
who's on the receiving end. This office is constantly
putting these stories together. That's when you
put a human face on financial aid, and that's
the real essence of it." - Rick Mahoney, director
of financial aid
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