Supporting Financial Aid

There’s a vital part of the BB&N curriculum that appears nowhere in the course catalog, but has everything to do with the character of the school: the profound education that our students provide for each other, in our hallways, classrooms, and playing fields every day. Eclectic, dynamic, cracklingly smart, our students come to us from amazingly diverse backgrounds and circumstances. Individually, they are as talented as the students at any independent school – and together they make a community that stands very much on its own.

That BB&N is home to such a distinctive group of students is due partly to our Cambridge location, which allows us to draw families from all across Greater Boston. Yet the deep diversity that defines the school is, in the end, no accident; it depends on concerted, long-term efforts to reach beyond the circle of affluence with the promise of financial aid.

“I take away from BB&N great learning experiences and an incredible academic foundation. I'm grateful for everything I've learned here…including how to understand and be tolerant of other people who are different from you and how to learn whatever you can from the world around you.”

– Sam Cabral-Curtis ’05

Our Challenge: Ensuring Diversity

$8 million in endowment to strengthen our financial aid program

In building the future of our financial aid program, we face several challenges: to make sure we are offering levels of aid that will bring us closer to our longer term goal of increasing economic diversity; to meet our commitment to the families already enrolled, a number of whom have faced reversals in recent recessionary years; and to ensure that students receiving aid have access to the most complete academic experience.

Once again, the limitations of BB&N's endowment and our heavy reliance on tuition have hampered our efforts to expand the reach of our financial aid. Today, to give us the strength and flexibility to meet our current goals and respond to future challenges, we must dramatically increase our financial aid endowment.

In pursuing this crucial objective, it's useful to remember that in a very real sense, financial aid is for everyone; at BB&N as at most independent schools, tuition is subsidized by several thousand dollars for literally every child. Yet much more important is what financial aid allows us to do for BB&N as a whole: to create a community of learners from many different backgrounds, who will test each other's assumptions, cultivate each other's strengths and open each other's remarkable young minds.

“I was on scholarship myself, so I know the difference it can make. I also know that there's absolutely no way to provide an excellent independent school education and sustain a diverse community without philanthropy. It just can't be done on the back of tuition – and that creates a wonderful opportunity for all of us to give back.”

– John Fitzpatrick ’73