"It Shall Ever Be Equally Open" from The Exeter Bulletin, Winter 2008

The Academy's new financial aid initiative made the news here at Exeter, and around the country

Wednesday, November 7, 2007, marked the beginning of a new chapter at Phillips Exeter Academy. That day, the Academy Trustees announced that as of the 2008–09 school year, an Exeter education will be free to any qualified student whose family income is $75,000 or less.

The announcement, remarks Principal Tyler C. Tingley ’48, ’64, ’01 (Hon.); P’99, has sparked an “exceptionally positive” outpouring from the Academy family, and perhaps even more notably, from those for whom an Exeter education previously seemed out of reach. Exeter’s admissions office reports that visits during the month of January 2008 were up 30 percent over January 2007, and that the number of applications received as of December 31, 2007, increased by approximately 4 percent over the same period last year. “We’ve actually had to recruit emeriti/ae instructors to help us keep up with interviews,” notes Director of Admissions Michael Gary P’06, P’11, who predicts that the real bump in visits and applications will come in the next admissions cycle, as word of the initiative spreads even farther afield.

The new financial aid initiative has been made possible by generous donations to The Exeter Initiatives, the comprehensive fundraising campaign the Academy launched in 2004, and by investment returns that have pushed the Academy’s endowment past the billion dollar mark. It ushers in a new era in the history of financial aid at Phillips Exeter, one that opens the doors of the Academy even wider to deserving students from every quarter of the United States, and our increasingly small world. As Tingley points out, it also “reflects the fundamental democratic ideal upon which this school is founded,” an ideal articulated in Exeter’s 1781 Deed of Gift: that the Academy “shall ever be equally open to youth of requisite qualifications from every quarter.”

Original Intent
To understand Exeter’s financial aid history, one must turn not just to the founding of Phillips Exeter Academy, but to the founder himself, a man who “amassed wealth, not from the sordid love of avarice, but to promote the interests of Science and Literature,” noted Governor William Plumer of New Hampshire. Indeed, well before John Phillips helped his nephew to establish Phillips Andover and later, with his second wife, Elizabeth, chartered Phillips Exeter, educating young men of widely varied backgrounds was much on his mind—and part of his philanthropy. Plumer, quoting Phillips’ diary, noted that “it was his practice to contribute a tenth of his income to religion and education,” and early records of Dartmouth College confirm this habit, for Phillips was an eager and generous donor to the school and later a valued trustee. More...

Check out the full issue of The Exeter Bulletin, Winter 2008...

Learn about Exeter's commitment to financial aid, including a free Exeter education to any accepted student whose family income is $75,000 or less...

Hear about financial aid from current students...