Some students began to mount vocal opposition to the financial aid policy for independent students last year when a prominent member of the gay community took a two-year leave from Harvard pending independent status.
Led by members of last year’s BGLTSA and Girlspot boards, students met with administrators in the financial aid office and with University President Lawrence H. Summers to try to change the policy.
The issue is particularly salient to the gay community, according to Fred O. Smith ’04, one of the students who met with administrators last year to try to change the policy.
“It can affect a wide range of people,” said Smith. “However, one of the groups I think it most strongly impacted would be the gay community because when someone goes off to college, sexual identity is something they begin to discover about themselves and there’s a very strong risk of disownment.”
After the group spent several months lobbying, the Financial Aid Committee decided to rework the policy.
“There was a sense of a number of students who felt that perhaps it was not as helpful as it could be,” Donahue says. “That’s when we started meeting with people from a range of different offices.”
Donahue also notes that the policy was last scrutinized 15 years ago and due for review.
And, over the summer, officials from UHS, the Bureau of Study Counsel, a representative from the senior tutors, the admissions office and the financial aid office hashed out the details of the plan.
Under the new policy, students can receive financial aid without taking time off, provided they agree to counseling and mediation with staffers from UHS or the Bureau of Study Counsel.
“The express purpose of this consultation will be to gain an understanding of the nature and extent of the alienation from the parent(s) and hopefully to engage in a mediated dialogue with him/her/them to try to resolve the impasse,” the new policy states.
Moreover, it requires that part of the counseling be dedicated to bringing together the student and his or her parents in order to see if reconciliation is a possibility.
According to the new policy, “It is important to stress that this requirement assumes a willingness on the part of the student to engage in such a mediated dialogue with his/her parent(s) if this is deemed appropriate by the counselor.”
In Search of Resolution
The Undergraduate Council, after internally debating the issue for some time, is currently urging the University to change the policy’s mediation requirement so that it will allow for exceptions in particular cases, such as those involving abuse.
Last month, the council passed a resolution asking that the financial aid office to change its rules so that mediation would “not be required in cases of abuse as identified by an impartial, independent, University-appointed psychologist,” contact between parents and students would “not be required in cases of abuse” and the previous policy for securing financial independence would “not be offered as an alternative,” as was the case with Neuhaus-Follini.
Council President Rohit Chopra ’04 says that each case should be considered individually.
“There are a lot of problems with people who come out to their parents,” Chopra says. “There are cases of abuse or other circumstances. It’s about making sure that the committee on financial aid gives really close attention to these factors.”
—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.