The Priorities

Priority: Undergraduate Scholarships
Goal: $350 million (10%)

Providing educational opportunity for gifted young men and women who have set their sights high and are committed to living engaged lives of achievement and service lies at the heart of all we do at Penn.

As a needs-blind institution — one of only 40 of the 4,000 higher educational institutions in the country — Penn is committed to evaluating applicants based solely on their records of achievement. Once a student is admitted, the University provides as much aid as the student requires. Today, approximately 4,000 undergraduates each year require some form of grant aid; in 2006-07, the average grant-eligible freshman received over $25,000 in grant aid.

With more students applying to Penn each year from an ever wider variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, the need for undergraduate financial aid continues to grow. Today, the undergraduate scholarship endowment covers only 15% of financial aid costs, requiring the University to use a significant portion of its operating budget to bridge the gap.

Increasing the number of endowed undergraduate scholarship funds will support the dreams of talented young people, as well as Penn's aspirations, while freeing more of the University's operating budget to address other needs.

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