Ithaca College is not Harvard University and can’t afford the kind of financial aid windfall that the elite Ivy League school and others like it have extended to their students in recent months.

“I think what [we’ve] seen is a very small set of schools with highly selective admissions and super rich endowments doing this,” President Peggy R. Williams said. “We’re watching what they’re doing with the inability to grasp it. We can’t do anything like [Harvard] is.”

On Dec. 10, Harvard — the richest university in the U.S., with an endowment of $35 billion — announced a major financial aid initiative to significantly reduce the financial burden of attending the school for middle- and upper-class families.

Under the new plan, families earning between $60,000 and $180,000 a year will pay only 10 percent of their income, saving them thousands of dollars a year in tuition costs. The university already asks for nothing from families earning less than $60,000 a year.

Harvard also will no longer count home equity against parents when calculating what they can pay, and will replace all loans with grants. Several other elite schools quickly followed Harvard’s lead to increase their financial aid offerings, including Yale University, Dartmouth College, Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Much of these financial aid developments are in response to the Senate Finance Committee’s consideration of a law that would require wealthy universities to spend a minimum of

5 percent of their endowments each year, like foundations are required, or risk losing their tax-exempt status.

Williams said at minimum, it would cost Ithaca College $24 million to replace all loans with grants, which she said wasn’t possible given the college’s endowment of only $237 million.

Williams said the college is expecting parents to be upset by this.

“We’ll get complaints as the admission cycle moves along,” she said.

Williams said the fact that the college’s tuition — close to $40,000 — is thousands of dollars less than elite universities is a form of aid in itself. She said the college offers good financial aid coupled with an excellent education.

Williams said her biggest concern now is that the change may hurt other colleges’ attempts to get more money for students from the state and federal governments.

“This will send a message to the government that we can take care of it ourselves,” she said. “These moves have taken all the pressure off legislators to help students who come to Ithaca. In New York State, the Tuition Assistance Program [TAP] grant to the most needy students has been flat for years. The compact between parents, colleges and the state has imploded.”

Jason Lazarcheck, a senior

at Harvard, said he hopes the policies will diversify the campus and could do the same at other schools.

“Being able to sit in a seminar with people from all different socioeconomic levels is a great opportunity,” he said. “But I know other colleges might not be able to do what Harvard’s doing.”

Larry Chambers, director of financial aid at Ithaca College, said most colleges couldn’t even consider a move like Harvard’s.

“Harvard’s endowment is greater than all the endowments of all the schools in New York State combined,” he said. “When I look at schools that Ithaca competes with — Boston University, Syracuse University — I don’t think they could do what Harvard is

doing either.”

He said he’s only received one call so far from a parent who inquired if the college could match Harvard’s offerings.

“The message was basically, ‘Can you do what Harvard is doing?’” he said. “Regrettably, we’re not in a position to do that.”

Chambers and Williams both pointed out that the college’s capital campaign has brought in more than $30 million in financial assistance for students through need- and merit-based aid. Williams also said the college is increasing the amount of the Ithaca Access Grant to $11,000 a year starting this fall.

Between federal, state and institutional aid programs, students at the college receive nearly $125 million in aid every year, $55 million of which is provided in the form of grant and scholarship assistance by the college. Sixty-four percent of students at the college receive some form of financial aid and only 50 percent of students at Harvard do, according to Williams. To go further would be financially impossible, she said.

“This is not an inexpensive enterprise,” she said. “What everyone wants in undergraduate residential education costs money.”

Tony Pals, a spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, a higher education lobbying group which the college is a part of, noted that the policies, while dramatic, may not have a large impact on students overall, because lower class students at Harvard already attend for free. He said Harvard’s move demonstrates that higher education is listening to the concerns of consumers.

“That said, [smaller] institutions are doing what they can within their financial means to stay as affordable as possible while providing a quality education,” he said.