Lehigh University initiative to increase financial aid

Lehigh University in Pennsylvania has announced a new financial aid policy to help students afford the cost of and education at Lehigh. The new policy eliminates loans for students with family incomes below $50,000. For those families with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, loans will be capped at a maximum of $3,000 each year. To help offset the decreased loan obligations those students who have loans eliminated or reduced will have their work study awards increased 25% to $2,200 per year. Finally, Lehigh will be making additional funds available for financial aid to international students with demonstrated need.

This new policy by Lehigh is exactly the sort of policy that I had hoped would start occurring after the most selective colleges starting announcing new financial aid policies. The pressure is mounting on those colleges, like Lehigh, that are just below this level of selectivity. The policy of Lehigh acknowledges that having a certain level of loan obligation on graduation is not terrible as long as the amount of the loan is not too great. I hope more colleges will continue this trend of improving financial aid for their students.