Do financial aid policies make paying for college harder for some?

A new study says low income students face increased obstacles for meeting the financial requirements of higher education. The challenges are a result of shifting methods of allocating financial aid money, according to the study.

|
Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor
Volunteer Vinette Richards assists families and students filling out FAFSA forms in the library of New Rochelle High School, on Jan. 26, 2014 in New York. Similar events help families through the application process.

College is getting more expensive – especially for low income students.

On Tuesday, a study released findings that low income students face significant challenges meeting the financial requirements to attend many private universities and an increasing number of public universities, despite financial aid.

The study was the third report in a multi-year series from The New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program. Together, the studies suggest the issue is getting worse.

What is to blame? A systematic shift in how private and public institutions are leveraging financial aid money, according to New America.

“In the face of steep state budget cuts over the past decade, public colleges are increasingly adopting the ‘enrollment management’ tactics of their private-college counterparts – to the detriment of low-income and working-class students alike,” the report states.

The study analyzed the average net price that low-income students paid in tuition in 2013-2014. The data came from the US Department of Education and ranged over 1,400 four-year public and private colleges.

The study found that public and private universities are using the available money for financial aid and focusing it into so-called merit-aid packages to attract students from more affluent areas, according to the study. This practice has a negative effect of reducing the opportunity for low-income students, according to New America.

Ninety-four percent of private colleges examined charge the lowest-income students an average net price over $10,000, 72 percent charge over $15,000, and 30 percent charge over $20,000

Forty-seven percent of public four-year colleges and universities, charge the most financially needy in-state students an average net price over $10,000

Some colleges defend the practice. Muhlenberg College, which was cited in the study, has a page, called The Real Deal on Financial Aid, that openly discusses the college's use of financial aid to target students with higher grades.

“While the new world of preferential packaging may not seem as 'kind and gentle' as the process was in years past, it does have its good points. Perhaps the most important one is that the right students and the right colleges may be finding each other more often,” the college states.

But the study maintains that the practice places too much reliance on Pell and other Federal grants to pick up the slack, rather than relying on what financial aid was initially intended for: to “serve as engines of opportunity, rather than as perpetuators of inequality.”

Federal programs aimed at lowering the barrier for low-incomes students have faced their own criticism in the past. Many have said the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is too complicated for many students and families. Around two million students who would have qualified for federal aid in 2014 to 2015 did not file, according to a White House press release.

The federal government has taken steps to improve the process, Jessica Mendoza of The Christian Science Monitor reported. Last year, the Obama administration announced a partial reform for the system that would push back the date of when students first receive access to FAFSA from January to October, allowing more time, and reduce the amount of paperwork students have to file.

“Getting the form filled out earlier will make a real difference for students who think they can’t afford college,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a 2015 town hall meeting in Iowa. “We believe literally hundreds of thousands of additional students will actually gain access to critical student aid each year.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Do financial aid policies make paying for college harder for some?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0318/Do-financial-aid-policies-make-paying-for-college-harder-for-some
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe