Yale has announced that it will match Harvard's recent financial aid increase--and raise the level to which the increase applies to $200,000 from Harvard's $180,000.

Here's Bloomberg, which beat the Times by a day on the story:

Families with annual incomes under $120,000 will pay 50 percent less starting in 2008-2009, the New Haven, Connecticut, university said today in a statement. Parents earning less than $60,000 won't need to pay at all, the school said. Yale also plans to peg its 2008-09 tuition increase to inflation.

This last line may feel unimportant compared to the $200k news, but it isn't. Critics of university tuition hikes, such as Iowa senator Charles Grassley, have consistently wondered why college tuitions seem so much faster than the rate of inflation. (Fair question, right?)

Yale's announcement that it will tie its next year's tuition increase (I suppose a freeze is out of the question) to inflation suggests Rick Levin's sensitivity to the political buzz surrounding the issue.

``Yale's action shows that, despite some squawking, the sky won't fall when universities increase the amount of money they spend from their endowments, and when they do, it can mean big help for families struggling to pay college costs,'' Grassley said in a statement.

Harvard seized the initial high ground when it made its announcement. I wonder if Rick Levin hasn't just taken it back.