May 27, 2020

Student Centered

Trustees Create 3:1 Match for Endowed Scholarships

“Andover has presented me with opportunities that I could have never imagined.” Sam ’20 wrote these words to the donor of his scholarship, but they’re sentiments shared by so many of his classmates.

Sam and 47 percent of PA students receive financial aid, and none of it must be repaid. With need-blind admission, students are accepted on their merits alone. The Academy then meets their family’s full demonstrated need. Andover is the only boarding school in the nation to make this commitment. But it’s one that takes a bold fiscal investment every year, because PA allocates more than $24 million annually to financial aid grants.

Knowledge & Goodness aims to make need-blind admission sustainable for the future—by endowing 80 percent of all student aid.

Enter the Andover Financial Aid Challenge. Launched this past fall, the challenge offers a 3:1 dollar match for leadership gifts, with benefactors establishing—or further adding to—endowed scholarships in their own name.

The Board of Trustees and other generous donors are sponsoring the initiative, and alumni and parents worldwide have stepped forward to create either partially or fully endowed scholarships. This burgeoning group includes Frank Herron ’70, P’00, and Sandy Urie ’70, who are celebrating their 50th reunions with Phillips and Abbot academies this year.

“It’s imperative that Andover has the economic means to admit students without regard to financial need well into the future,” says Urie. “Every gift helps our school remain true to its historic and distinctive mission.”

For more on the challenge, email [email protected].

Originally printed in The Vista: Views from the Knowledge & Goodness Campaign, spring 2020.

Categories: Philanthropy

Other Stories

Elwin Sykes
Mourning the loss of Elwin Sykes

Faculty emeritus who taught English for more than 30 years passes away

Angie Thomas
The audacity of optimism

Best-selling author Angie Thomas delivers MLK Day keynote