In the interest of soliciting more applicants from lower-income families, Harvard University announced last Saturday that it will no longer ask parents earning an annual household income under $40,000 to contribute financially to the cost of their children's education, according to The New York Times. Students, however, will be expected to work during the school year and during the summer. Additionally, Harvard plans to require a smaller financial contribution from parents who earn between $40,000 and $60,000 a year then it normally does.

Harvard officials claim that Harvard is the first selective college to remove contribution requirements for lower-income students, though they said other schools engage in similar policies unofficially. According to The Times, Harvard's decision to revise their financial aid program stemmed from focus groups conducted with lower-income students last fall.

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers said he believes that the higher education institution may be inhibiting social mobility because of a large gap in college attendance for students from different income ranges. "When only 10 percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough," he told The Times.

Only seven percent of Harvard's current undergraduates come from families with earnings in the lowest quarter of American household incomes. Sixteen percent are from the bottom half, while nearly 75 percent are from families with incomes in the top quarter. According to The Times, officials nationwide are working to revise financial aid programs in light of the reality that tuition and other costs of higher education are rising more quickly than families' incomes.