Campus & Community

A unique but exemplary academic year: 2020-21 in review

A challenging yet successful year—Penn’s exceptional community of dedicated students, faculty, and staff overcame the world’s most significant obstacles to flourish, from outreach locally through volunteerism, to helping the world globally with mRNA technology. The 2021 academic year highlighted the best of Penn.

Tina Rodia

Counselors at Student Financial Services help find success, not stress

As grant-based aid packages—bolstered by named scholarships—have helped Penn welcome more students who come from lower-income households, Student Financial Services (SFS) has ramped up its ability to assist their academic journeys, especially during the pandemic when students needed more support than ever. That includes having two counselors—Silvia Hanks and Jodi Wagner—who specialize in serving highly aided students at Penn.

Penn Today Staff



In the News


Bloomberg

Ivy League’s Penn shakes up aid formula by excluding home equity

To increase affordability, Penn will stop including a family’s equity in their primary home when determining a student’s financial aid eligibility.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn to expand its full-tuition scholarship aid to families with a higher income threshold

Penn’s Quaker Commitment will expand full-tuition scholarships and will no longer consider the primary family home as an asset in its calculation for institutional aid. Interim President J. Larry Jameson and director of financial aid Elaine Papas Varas offer remarks.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn student awarded Rhodes Scholarship to continue cancer research at Oxford University

College of Arts and Sciences fourth-year Om Gandhi from Barrington, Illinois, has been awarded a 2025 Rhodes Scholarship to continue his cancer research at Oxford University.

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Chicago Sun-Times

UChicago students, Barrington native among 2024 Rhodes Scholars heading to University of Oxford

College of Arts and Sciences fourth-year Om Gandhi from Barrington, Illinois, has been awarded a 2025 Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn is offering free Narcan through vending machine on campus

A vending machine on Penn’s campus will offer free Narcan and other wellness and health products, with remarks from Jackie Recktenwald and Benoit Dubé of Wellness at Penn.

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