The Financial Aid Initiative
Goal: 70.0 Million

A good debate in today’s Harkness classroom still demands that Exeter students be highly intelligent and that they speak from a variety of perspectives. Conversation around the table would be greatly diminished if Exeter students were all derived, for example, from the same socio-economic, ethnic, or religious circumstances, or from the same regions of the country, or if they all possessed the same academic interests. Exeter’s fundamental premise is that it should be equally open to the brightest students from all backgrounds, and no matter what their financial means.

Yet paying for an Exeter education today requires significantly more of an average family’s income than it did 20 years ago. Even with tight fiscal management, a strong Annual Giving Fund, and a healthy, growing endowment, the highly personal nature of the Harkness table and residential living make Exeter a labor-intensive (and therefore costly) enterprise. In recent years, as financial need among families has grown, Exeter has been able to offer more financial aid thanks to expanded resources contributed by generous alumni/ae and parents. During the 1990s in particular, the Academy gained significant ground for middle-income students whose representation in the Exeter student body had been declining over previous decades. Today, 34 percent of the student body receives assistance, versus 26 percent in 1980.

Yet financial aid resources remain limited, and the Academy is not able to accept all of the students it would most like to admit. The current financial aid picture is never static: in recent years, the economy has created even more need for financial assistance, not only in the applicant pool, but also among students who are already enrolled. A final complicating factor is that as Exeter has promoted its aid program, the percentage of financial aid applicants who accept the offer of admission has been increasing, placing greater strain on the existing financial aid budget.

The good news is that Exeter has more students than ever before receiving financial assistance, and the Academy would like to accept even more qualified applicants. The difficulty is that this poses a tremendous financial challenge for the Academy. The solution, paired with responsible fiscal management, is to increase Exeter’s endowment resources for financial aid. The Financial Aid Initiative aims to raise $70 million, which will provide an additional $3 million to the financial aid budget on a yearly basis. This will allow Exeter to move the percentage of students on aid from roughly 34 percent each year to 40 percent and to accept all of the best qualified students.

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The Financial Aid Initiative Naming Opportunities

Named Scholarship Endowment Funds:
(These funds support specific students who are identified as fund scholars.)

Partial Scholarship Endowment Fund
$150,000
(Provides approximately one-quarter of an average scholarship award.)

Major Scholarship Endowment Fund
$300,000
(Provides approximately half of the average scholarship award.)

Day Student Scholarship Endowment Fund
$450,000
(Provides approximately the average award for a day student.)

Boarding Student Scholarship Endowment Fund
$600,000
(Provides approximately the average award for a boarding student.)

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Profile: Jim Ottaway ’55; P’78 on Preserving Meritocracy

Jim Ottaway ’55; P’78

During his four years at Exeter, Jim Ottaway ’55; P’78 met and befriended students from all walks of life. “I later discovered that some of my best friends were scholarship students who could not have come to Exeter without the generous support of previous Exeter graduates,” says Jim. The experience made its mark, deeply affecting Jim’s own thinking on social justice and responsibility and inspiring him in later philanthropic decisions.

Today Jim still feels passionate about maintaining the meritocratic ethic that makes Exeter so special. “The basic reason for my continuing support of Exeter is that it is and should continue to be the best independent secondary school in America. One of the main reasons for its preeminence is its generous scholarship program, which I hope will be increased from helping 34 percent to 40 percent of the student body.” Thanks to Jim’s incredible generosity, Exeter is on its way to reaching this goal. In 2002, Jim pledged $10 million to establish the James H. Ottaway Jr., Class of 1955, Scholarship Endowment, the income from which will be used to provide scholarship aid for students with financial need.

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