In the 25 years that Jim Scott has served as president of Punahou School, the most obvious signs of change are the gleaming new facilities that have sprouted across the campus.

But as he retires from the job today, Scott’s legacy is reflected as well in its student body. He has opened the doors of the illustrious school to a broader socioeconomic range of children and forged connections far beyond its Manoa campus.

“Punahou should be looking outward, not inward. It should be serving a greater public purpose,” Scott, a 1970 alumnus, recalls telling a board chairman midway through his presidency.

Believing in the power of varied perspectives in education and in life, Scott ramped up financial aid in a big way at the school. When he arrived in 1994, just 8% of Punahou students got financial help to attend. Today the figure is 20%, he said, and climbing.

“I tried to make the place more accessible for talented and accomplished kids regardless of their financial circumstances,” he said. “I think as we have been able to become more economically diverse, that has naturally led to ethnic diversity.”

Making the school more representative of Hawaii’s population makes sense from a business standpoint as well, allowing it to draw from a bigger pool of applicants.

“When you have a robust financial aid program, it helps admissions,” he said. “It keeps you highly selective. Our commitment to financial aid is mission-driven, but it’s also good business.”

As president, he quickly realized that depending on the annual Punahou Carnival to fund financial aid was insufficient — especially when it rained. So he reached out for help in other ways, with campaigns aimed at increasing financial aid and support for faculty, along with capital improvement projects.

The school’s endowment has soared to $300 million, up from $60 million in 1994. On June 5, Scott announced that the Ku‘u Punahou campaign had exceeded its ambitious $175 million goal on the school’s 175th anniversary, with the help of 12,500 donors over six years.

Today, Punahou admissions are “need blind” and the school can meet 100% of a family’s demonstrated financial need, Scott said, just as at his college alma mater, Stanford University, whose policy inspired him.

“The vision has always been if you are admitted we want you to come regardless of your family circumstances,” he said.

Still, some families think they might feel out of place at a school where 80% of parents can pony up $26,000 a year in tuition per child.

“There’s so many families that I still meet that say, ‘Other people send their kids to Punahou, not families like ours,’” he said. “So there’s lots of barriers to be broken down.”

Born in Waimanalo, James Kapae‘alii Scott entered Punahou in kindergarten. Scott, whose father also graduated from Punahou, became the school’s first president of Hawaiian ancestry.

Today, 12% to 15% of current Punahou students are part-Hawaiian, a figure he estimates has doubled during his tenure. The school gives preference to children of alumni and teachers, as well as those with Hawaiian ancestry.

Along with changes in its student body, Punahou’s physical plant for kindergarten through eighth grade has been transformed under Scott’s leadership.

The Mamiya Science Center opened five years after his arrival, followed by the Case Middle School in 2004, the Omidyar Kindergarten and First Grade Neighborhood in 2010, and the Sidney and Minnie Kosasa Community for grades 2 to 5, whose second phase will be completed this summer.

All were funded without taking on long-term debt. Each reached high levels of green design.

Creating the new buildings opened the way for new approaches to learning for the 3,750 students at Punahou.

“When you have an opportunity to build a new instructional facility, it gives you a chance to ask great questions, like ‘under what conditions do children learn best?’” Scott said. “How do you make a large school smaller, for deeper and more personalized learning?

“We wanted to build spaces that were flexible, collaborative, certainly with arts at the center,” he said. “There’s a lot more glass, the classrooms are more visible and inviting to people just walking by … . We don’t have students sitting in rows of desks any more. They’re moving around more.”

Scott’s commitment to making Punahou “a private school with a public purpose” also shows in the creation of the Luke Center for Public Service in 2002 and launch of the Clarence T.C. Ching PUEO program in 2005.

The PUEO program identifies economically disadvantaged public school students entering middle school who might not consider themselves college material. It sets their sights on higher education and gives them a scholarship for summer school at Punahou every year until graduation.

It combines high expectations, good college counseling and what Scott calls “the power of the cohort group,” with kids egging each other on. Almost all of them remain at their home schools until graduation.

About 350 students in grades 6 to 12 are currently in the program, and more than 300 have graduated. The program is funded with money from local foundations and individuals.

On Monday, Michael Latham, a 1986 Punahou alumnus, will take over from Scott, leaving his post as vice president for academic affairs and dean of Grinnell College in Iowa to become Punahou’s fourth president since World War II.

Scott, 67, has handed out roughly 11,000 diplomas to Punahou graduates in the past quarter-century. His challenge to them has always been to consider their education a gift to share.

“No matter where you are, where you go,” he said at commencement June 1, “pay this gift forward, pass it on to others, pass it on to the world.”