Campus & Community

GSD new financial aid program for international students

2 min read

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Dean Alan Altshuler recently announced an expansion of GSD’s financial aid policy.

Beginning fall 2008, entering international master’s level students will be eligible for grant assistance in similar fashion to American students. This aid will be drawn from a new fund within GSD, to be launched by the School using internal resources, with the expectation that the fund will be augmented over time with external gifts and grants. As in the case of American master’s degree students, international student aid grants will be need-based.

“For as long as anyone can remember, GSD grant assistance for study in the School’s master’s degree programs has been available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents,” said Altshuler. “In concert with the University, we were able to make far more generous loan assistance available to international master’s students several years ago, and just last year the School significantly augmented a GSD-financed work-study fund for international students as well. Meanwhile, the GSD has managed to increase spending for grant assistance to American masters students by 44 percent over the past two years, while strengthening the School’s finances in preparation for the new policy announced today.

“We have also established, effective immediately, a fund to provide modest grant assistance for continuing international masters students who encounter unexpected emergencies during the course of their studies,” continued Altshuler.

“This is not, I should emphasize, a fund large enough to provide grants based on financial need alone. It is, rather, intended to deal with cases of particularly acute need triggered by unexpected events. Our director of financial assistance, Keith Gnoza, will shortly distribute a notice to all international master’s students providing further information on how to apply for such grants and the criteria by which applications will be evaluated,” Altshuler said.

“I have, let me note, adopted this new policy with the enthusiastic concurrence of Dean Designate Mohsen Mostafavi, who joins me in the hope that it will be possible during the years ahead to continue the recent trajectory of rapid growth in financial aid spending for all of our students, domestic as well as international.”