Our Goal: $170 MillionEducation transforms students’ lives. By making the promise of a world-class education a reality for the most talented students, regardless of social and economic background, scholarships and fellowships at Penn open doors to a brighter future for thousands every year. And by providing a path for the best minds to access to the best possible education, financial aid reaches beyond the individual students to benefit our diverse society.
Penn has long maintained a policy of need-blind admissions. Now this commitment is strengthened by a policy of paying tuition, room, and board for all undergraduates from families with incomes of less than $60,000. The scope of this commitment, while great, is critical to the future of need-blind admissions and to guaranteeing our ability to sustain a talented, diverse student body.
Since the majority of Penn undergraduates are students of the College of Arts and Sciences, increasing the school’s scholarship endowment is imperative. Providing more generous financial aid will ensure that the School of Arts and Sciences remains competitive with other leading colleges and universities and attracts outstanding undergraduates from diverse backgrounds.
Our commitment to graduate students is equally strong. Graduate students are a vital link in the intellectual life of a university. They are students, but also teachers, mentors, advisors, scholars, collaborators. They come here to be nurtured and inspired by our outstanding faculty, but at the same time they energize the institution through their creativity and dedication to acquiring and advancing knowledge. They represent the future of scholarship, and those who go on to academic careers establish Penn’s quality amongst our peers. In short, no research university can thrive without a vibrant graduate student culture.
In keeping with their importance to our intellectual vitality, the School is committed to securing the resources necessary to recruit the very best graduate students. This financial assistance includes not only fellowship support, but support for summer stipends and dissertation research. Penn has long lagged behind its peer institutions in its ability to provide competitive support packages. While we have enjoyed some gains recently, we have a long way to go to ensure that we remain an institution of choice for talented graduate students.
