School works towards more robust Financial Aid program following two unprecedented donations

Erica Jiang Staff Writer

After receiving two of the largest donations in its history — $4,500,000 and $15,000,000 — the school will expand Financial Aid access to just over 15 percent of Nursery through 12th grade (N-12) students next year. The $14.5 million aid budget will increase average awards to $49,000, covering 79 percent of the tuition — a rise from the $12.5 million budget and $44,500 average this year that covered 74 percent of tuition, as stated in Financial Aid documents on the school’s website.

nomic Diversity at Horace Mann School.”

According to the document, “we have long believed that socioeconomic diversity plays an important role within that ‘diverse community of students,’ but perhaps feel that this is even more important for today’s HM, today’s student body, and today’s world.” student is placed on a waitlist for Aid. “When the budget is not sufficient to cover every admitted student, we review requests and prioritize dollars at our main entry points,” Moreira wrote.

Each year, the amount of money allocated for Aid depends on how much the school receives from tuition (currently about 11.5 percent of the total tuition revenue goes to Aid), endowed funds designated for Financial Aid, and other Annual Fund dollars specified for immediate use, Moreira wrote.

While the school provides Financial Aid to the lowest percentage of students across the Ivy Preparatory League, it is one of the few schools that provides support for a variety of other expenses that students need, Moreira wrote. Those expenses include school trips, college application fees, doctor visits for physicals, technology, among other needs. Next school year, the school will provide $400,000 in school bus subsidies and $250,000 towards the cost of lunch in the MD and UD.

Whether they receive aid or not, students can apply for the Student Assistance Fund (officially the Lynn & Lizzie Koch ’05 Endowed Student Assistance Sunshine Fund) if they find the additional costs for extra-curricular activities prohibitive. “HM is one of the only schools in the area that has a Student Assistance Fund which allocates nearly $100,000 per year,”

Behind the two largest gifts in the school’s history

“In the late spring of 2022, I was grateful to meet with several HM families, who prefer to remain anonymous, expressing an appreciation for what the school represents and an even deeper appreciation for the need for any qualified student, regardless of their economic status, to have access to a world-class education such as ours,” Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly wrote. “These two families stepped up with unprecedented gifts.”

“All of these things are possible because of these two record-breaking gifts, and the support other families continue to provide to HM,” Director of Institutional Research & Enrollment Management Lisa Moreira wrote in response to an email.

As the tuition rises to $61,900 for the 20232024 school year, the school lags behind other Ivy Preparatory League schools in the amount of financial aid it awards. At Fieldston and Dalton, 22 percent and 21 percent of students received $18 million and $12 million in Financial Aid respectively, according to their websites. By contrast, the school awarded aid to 14

Due to limited resources and the school’s need-blind admissions, ad mitted students are not always offered Aid. “Some schools will not admit a student (but instead might place them on an admissions wait list) if their bud get is not sufficient to provide Aid,” Moreira wrote. “But at HM we be lieve that it is important to make Admissions decisions in a needblind manner, even if our budget does not allow us to provide Aid to every admitted student who qualifies.”

In the 2022-23 school year, six percent

One further expense the school does not include in its Financial Aid budget is the employee perquisite. Enrolled children of full time employees are entitled to one third of tuition as a benefit of employment; most employees with enrolled children also apply for Financial Aid beyond the employee perquisite, but almost $800,000 in perquisite dollars was provided in 2022-23 and not included in the Aid figures. If that was included in the 2022-23 Aid budget total, it would reflect a total of $13.3 million dollars; the projection for 2023-24 inclusive of the perquisites would

The Admissions Office has worked to make the school’s admissions process more accessible, making changes to the standardized testing requirement and offering Financial Aid information sessions.

Compared to peer schools, the school has a low per-student endowment ratio, which is a measure of the amount of Financial Aid it can offer. The school created an endowment for Aid in the past thirty years. “While we have provided Financial Aid for longer than any of our current employees can recall, potentially since HM’s earliest days, the philosophy surrounding the approach to Aid and socio-economic diversity has evolved over time,” the White Paper said.

As tuition increases, so will the need for Aid in future years. “Rising tuition rates are a struggle for many of our families who do not qualify for Aid but see those costs increasing each year and may not see their own incomes keeping pace,” according to the White Paper. “In order to achieve a fully endowment-funded and need-blind Financial Aid program, we estimate more than $350 million (as of 2022) would need to be endowed specific to Aid.”

Currently, the school has raised $47.25 million for endowed and immediate use. Along with the two large gifts, the funds came from the HM in Motion Capital Campaign (with $6.25 million designated to Aid), $8 million in Restricted Annual Fund, Senior Gifts, and Par-

The first donor made the second largest lump-sum gift in the school’s history: $4,500,000. The money will go towards the Financial Aid endowment, which will be spent with the Board-approved 4.5% spending policy. “Knowing that an HM family would place such a high priority on supporting HM and its students was humbling and a tremendous boost to our collective confidence as we began this quiet effort,” Kelly wrote.

The second donor made the largest gift in school history, committing $15,000,000 in increments of $1,000,000 per year for immediate use towards Financial Aid, Kelly wrote. “This HM family donor applauded our long term goal and efforts to date, but felt it important to contribute to immediate change, while simultaneously inspiring others to participate in this quiet initiative.” ents Association & Alumni Council Benefits. “These recent efforts, totaling $47.25 million (endowed and immediate use) have also served to bolster the school’s overall financial position and fitness of governance and operations as validated by a AA- rating from S&P Global,” Kelly wrote. Going forward, the school’s Board of Trustees and administration, along with the Board’s Academic Affairs/Enrollment & Student Life Committee and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, plan to increase the Aid endowment in $25,000,000 increments every three to five years, Kelly wrote.