Mark Kantrowitz

Mark Kantrowitz of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, for going above and beyond as a public-interest mathematician committed to the ideal of providing all students with access to a higher education, regardless of ability to pay. This MIT and Carnegie Mellon educated research scientist turned down lucrative offers from Google and others, choosing instead to devote his life to using his mathematical skill to helping students to attend college by enabling them to understand student loans and to find the best possible rates. Kantrowitz founded FinAid.org in 1994, and is also Director of Advanced Projects for FastWeb.com, a complete scholarship search site. Both websites have been used by more than 50 million students to locate scholarships and low-cost loans, and their databases are available to the public at no cost. In 2006 he wrote a book on financial aid, FastWeb College Gold, and used his royalties to buy 30,000 copies, which he distributed for free to college financial aid administrators and guidance counselors nationwide.



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