What Is the Value of a Life-Changing Education?

By Lisa Tedrick Prejean

In the spring of 2024, Jack Lewis ’25 was giving a speech to the student body on why he would be an effective senior class president. He could sense that the speech was not going well. He was nervous. He was talking too fast, saying too much.

I felt seen, and I felt encouraged, and that what I did mattered.
Jennifer Miller Smith ’97, P ’23, ’24

But still, there was a sense of acceptance in the room.

“After that, from my teachers and my peers, I heard nothing but kindness,” said Lewis, a boarding student from nearby Greencastle, PA. “I didn’t get that position. But because I didn’t, I became a peer group leader this year. It was so amazing, so fulfilling, just to see a group of 9th graders grow. It was probably the best leadership training I’ve ever received, because we really learned how to speak to people and how to create good conversation.”

Lewis, who plans to pursue a business major in college, shared his experience during a dinner for scholarship recipients and their benefactors in January as an example of the transformative power of the Mercersburg community, both in terms of support and opportunities for growth.

He also noted that without financial aid, the Mercersburg experience would have been unattainable for him and his sisters, Grace ’20 and Isabel ’21. He thanked all the donors present, and specifically the Davenport family, whose philanthropic generosity provided financial aid for him and other students through the Davenport Family Scholarship Fund.

At the same dinner, Board of Regents President Tom Hadzor ’72 expressed gratitude for the scholarship he received to attend Mercersburg.

“Mercersburg changed my life,” Hadzor said. “The opportunity provided to me by Mercersburg, and the choice to accept that scholarship, made a huge difference in how my life has gone.” 

To pay it forward, Hadzor and his wife, Susan Ross, established the Susan C. Ross and Thomas B. Hadzor ’72 Endowed Scholarship Fund so that other students can have the opportunities he had. 

“I am so pleased for the scholarship recipients and immensely proud of the opportunity we are now able to provide–the same opportunity someone provided me many years ago, for which I will be forever grateful,” Hadzor said.

One way to create diversity is through financial aid and making sure that we have students from all different backgrounds at the school, socioeconomically, culturally, racially, across all spectrums.”

John Richardson, Chief Advancement Officer

BOLD MOVE 

As families discover the possibilities available at Mercersburg, the price of tuition might cause many qualified applicants to turn away, but the offer of financial aid can make them stay.

Building sustainability in our financial aid resources is a priority, one of the school’s Bold Moves. Doing so amplifies our ability to identify, recruit, admit, enroll, and re-enroll the best and brightest students from around the world. 

As resources are dedicated for financial aid, this priority not only strengthens our financial profile but also sends a signal to our community that we have an unwavering commitment to a well-rounded student body.

“Part of the value of being at schools like ours is the opportunity to encounter and engage with a community of peers who are all different,” said Head of School Quentin McDowell P ’25, ’27. “We often measure that in more traditional ways, but I think one of the things you don’t readily see is the great socioeconomic breadth of our student body. When you have kids that represent a lot of different types of backgrounds, including socioeconomic backgrounds, our kids learn more, they grow more. They can see through the lenses of others. They have an appreciation for others whose lives differ from their own.”

Over the years, financial aid has made a difference for many families who send their children to Mercersburg. 

“We have been a school that has long had financial aid,” McDowell said. “It dates back to the ‘working boys’ of our early days, and while we no longer have our students wear ‘The Scarlet Letter’ of aid–which can have its own detrimental effects–we do continue that tradition of making sure that we’re able to enroll the best and brightest, regardless of their financial background.”

 

Life-Changing Transformation 

Without financial aid, Mercersburg would not have been possible for Dean of Academics Jennifer Miller Smith ’97, P ’23, ’24, who was homeschooled through 8th grade and attended Gettysburg, PA, public schools for two years.

She visited Mercersburg, fell in love with the school, and when she became a student here, soon learned how passionate the teachers are about learning and how much they care about students. 

“I felt seen, and I felt encouraged, and that what I did mattered,” Smith said. “It was nice being around other people who were ambitious, who knew things about college that I had no idea about. It opened up a lot of options for me that I wouldn’t have even known existed.”

Most people would be surprised to learn that many families–even families that would not seem to need financial aid–qualify for some form of assistance, according to Associate Director of Admission Amy Mohr P ’26, ’29.

“One of the things that I tell families who ask about it is we don’t know if you qualify unless you apply,” Mohr said. “I always encourage people–if they’re unsure whether they can afford the tuition–to apply, because everyone’s situation is different.

“It’s there to be used, and it’s there
for qualified students that we want to have in the school. So why not apply for financial aid?”

Mercersburg creates access for a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds through the expectation that families will pay what they can. Some families have the assets to pay the full price of tuition. Others can pay half of that each year. Some are only able to pay a fraction of the cost. A limited number of families receive financial aid to cover nearly the entire cost of tuition.

While these families come from various backgrounds and cultures, they all have one thing in common: Their children are bright, forward-focused thinkers who can learn to thrive and grow together, contributing much to the Mercersburg community. 

“One way to create diversity is through financial aid and making sure that we have students from all different backgrounds at the school, socioeconomically, culturally, racially, across all spectrums,” said Chief Advancement Officer John Richardson. “Because of the resources that we have with financial aid, we’re able to do that.”

Attending high school with people from all over the world is a privilege that Lewis and his classmates cherish: “The diversity of a student body coming from different countries and different parts of the U.S. has really transformed the way I think about other people, but also the way I think about the world.”