Book reveals Harvard pupils' cunning trick to get luxury cars, financial aid

New York, June 30 : A journalist claims in his upcoming book that pupils at Harvard Business School used to play a cunning trick to buy luxury cars and get financial aid, when he was a university student.

Philip Delves Broughton writes in 'Ahead of the Curve' about his two years at the Ivy League university, telling that he was stunned to find a number of students driving BMWs, Porsches, Lexuses, Mini Coopers and Lincoln Navigators, while he only had a 2,000-dollar Toyota.

"Once you get accepted into HBS, you want to clear out your bank account so that you can get more financial aid. When you list your assets in the financial-aid application, you don't have to mention your car . . . You buy a car for 20,000 dollars, maybe you get an extra 20,000 dollars in financial aid, so basically HBS buys you a BMW. If you hadn't bought the car, you'd have to pay 20,000 dollars out of your savings," the New York Post quoted him recalling what a student once told him.

The author writes that he was jolted by "the idea of these 25-year-old Wall Street jerks fiddling with their financial aid forms, with the connivance of their parents and the local BMW dealerships."

Representatives for the school were unavailable for comment.

ANI