Just like Harvard and Princeton, Stanford is now waiving fees for students from families with annual incomes of less than US$45,000. Of course, this particular form of financial aid is valid only for United States residents. Nevertheless, for American students from low-income families, this program represents almost US$47,000 worth of savings every year, as the Stanford’s tuition fees and living costs are expected to reach that amount this year.

But while Stanford’s new financial aid program is definitely a step forward (towards the financial aid implementations of Harvard and Princeton), foreign students, like me, will still be hoping for a change in Stanford’s non-need-blind admission policy, which penalise foreign students (lower chance of admission) who also apply for financial aid from the university. Harvard, Princeton, Yale and MIT have need-blind admission policies for all categories of students, whether foreign or domestic, unlike Stanford which only provides need-blind admission for local students.

[News via Yahoo! News]