The College has increased its scholarship budget, which will now rise to just under $80 million, by 49 percent in the last six years. According to Donahue, Harvard has substantially cut the amount students are expected to contribute to their tuition payments—from $7,000 in 1998-1999 to $3,350 this year.

Fitzsimmons said the changes announced Saturday would not affect student contribution requirements.

Summers said yesterday that Harvard has no intention of copying Princeton’s “no loan” policy, which in 2001 eliminated student loans from initial aid awards.

“It’s better for students to have choices between borrowing and term-time jobs,” Summers said in an interview.

Donahue and Fitzsimmons said that under Harvard’s current program, undergraduates can choose to graduate debt-free if they work approximately 12 hours a week during the academic term.

But Donahue said that Harvard’s aid program allows undergraduates to take on student loans if they would prefer to concentrate on extracurricular activities during the school year.

The expected student contribution to tuition payments for Harvard undergraduates is approximately $1,000 larger than at Princeton, Fitzsimmons said.

According to statistics from Harvard’s Financial Aid Office, 35 percent of students at the College take out student loans. On average, members of the College’s Class of 2003 graduated with a student loan debt of about $8,800, compared to a national average of nearly $20,000 in debt per graduating student, according to the University.

Fitzsimmons said that Saturday’s move “has nothing to do with competitiveness with other schools and everything to do with addressing inequality of opportunity.”

But Harvard officials did not discount the impact Saturday’s move will have on other institutions.

“We hope this will serve as a stimulus for other schools to move in this direction as well,” Donahue said.

Summers’ high-profile announcement of the new financial aid formula forms a critical component of Harvard’s stepped-up outreach effort, according to Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73, the director of undergraduate admissions.

“Our expectation is that the news of the new program in and of itself will be very, very helpful in making tangible to prospective students our commitment to access,” McGrath Lewis wrote in an e-mail yesterday afternoon.

Fitzsimmons said that public school budget cuts across the country had left millions of students without access to adequate college counseling.

“If you’re out there in the real world on the wrong side of the tracks, it takes a long time to get into a position to be competitive as a candidate for America’s top colleges and universities,” Fitzsimmons said.