How the global pandemic has influenced financial aid at CGS

By Margot Camp, ‘23

Since the start of remote learning and the COVID-19 pandemic at Catlin Gabel School (CGS), 13 more students have required financial aid for tuition, and 35 students who were already in the financial aid program needed additional help.

An additional $300,000 of the $5.3 million budget was allocated toward further helping families who needed support during the pandemic.

Statistics from The National Association of Independent Schools on financial aid. Courtesy of Sara Nordhoff. — *Statistics from The National Association of Independent Schools on financial* *aid.* *Courtesy of Sara Nordhoff.*

Mary Yacob, the Director of Financial Assistance at CGS, said that in the past five or six years, the percent of families requiring financial aid at CGS has hovered around 26-28%.

“[The 26-28%] is a function of the school's budget and how it calculates the amount for financial aid, so we have to stay within those boundaries,” Yacob explained.

The average percent of families who use financial aid at independent schools is around 25% said Sara Nordhoff, Director of Enrollment Management.

Yacob said that since she and Nordhoff have been working together at CGS, they have pushed to have the budget distributed more evenly between the three divisions at CGS: the Upper School, Middle School, Lower School and Beginning School. Prior to their work, 60% of the financial aid budget was going to the Upper School and very little was left for the Beginning and Lower School.

“Diversity really takes longer than four years,” said Yacob when describing why she and Nordhoff have worked to give more of the budget to Lower School families.

“Mary and I wish that that needle would shift even more, in terms of the students who are receiving financial assistance at the school,” said Nordhoff.

Nordhoff explained how the budget is a fixed amount of money every year, which is why it stays around the same percentage of students receiving financial aid.

Because of the pandemic, it has made it harder for some families to pay the usual tuition, increasing the number of families who need financial aid.