Recruiting and funding financial aid are necessary, yet insufficient, to meet the College’s broad objectives. Full student success requires more than mere access or the funding of tuition and fees. In order to provide singular, transformative opportunities to each and every student, the College must also level the playing field for those whose families have fewer resources.

Accordingly, the College established the overarching Kravis Opportunity Fund in 2018. Building on our foundational commitment to students, the Opportunity Fund model ensures that the full breadth of the CMC education is within reach for every student. The Opportunity Fund model increases student access through a range of benefits and support structures, including:

• Access to funding for a first-year summer experience (internship) for all first-year students on need-based financial aid;
• Start-up funding of $2,000 per student for our lowest-income students (approximately 50 per year), for costs of bedding, interview and Athenaeum attire, and technology (laptop, cell phone, etc.);
• An increased Kravis Opportunities Fund, used to support student costs on networking trips, traveling to present their research, attend conferences, participate in our job shadowing program, and other endeavors during the academic year;
• Family travel funding for visiting campus (e.g., family weekends, graduation); and
• Support for health insurance expenses for students from outside of the State of California. Low-income students from California can access low- or no-cost health insurance from Medi-Cal, while students hailing from other states often do not have the same access. Our financial aid office has supported students in purchasing private insurance when they have been unable to find another low-cost insurance provider.
• Over the long term, we seek to reduce home equity from financial aid calculations for students from middle-income families. This allows the College to offer much more competitive financial aid packages to middle-income students, and would dramatically reduce the burden on middle- and moderate-income families who purchased their homes years ago and have remained in expensive real estate markets throughout the U.S.