The Harvard Disadvantage

Boston.com

CAMBRIDGE, USA -- He was valedictorian of his senior class and had been accepted at all 13 colleges to which he applied. But when Miguel Garcia entered Harvard University last fall, he felt he didn't belong.

As classmates moved into Harvard Yard that first day with parents -- and in some cases, chauffeurs -- driving fancy vehicles packed with boxes, Garcia arrived alone. His belongings fit into two suitcases and a backpack. His mother, a worker at an industrial laundry, and father, a janitor at a Detroit casino, could not afford the trip.

"Everyone else seemed so polished and entitled and seamlessly adapting," Garcia recalled. "It just felt like they'd been here their whole lives. I was really intimidated. I didn't feel like I had anything in common."

Students of modest means have attended Harvard on scholarship for decades. But with the school making an unprecedented push to recruit more of them by offering virtually free rides, the number of students from families making less than $60,000 a year has surged 30 percent over the last five years -- to about one-fifth of all Harvard students. More>>

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