As the year draws to a close, many of our seniors in high
school are finding out information about where they were accepted into college.
For many of our students, however, funding college is not always the easiest
thing to do. But there is financial aid, you say! Let’s look at that form for
FAFSA; it asks questions about the potential schools the student has applied
and was accepted to, the demographics of the student and parents, and the
dependency status of the student. Along with those three pages itself, there’s
another page where IRS information is requested as well. Wouldn’t it be much
easier to just look at income? Some say that in fact there really isn’t a
statistical difference in the distribution of money after the entire FAFSA,
versus an income analysis; the distribution is in fact almost identical.
So why do we have this overly complicated system? In the
mean time, what does your school offer for students in terms of helping
students and parents navigate the FAFSA? What about alternative methods of
funding such as scholarships and grants? While the FAFSA does provide Pell
Grants, they also provide loans, whereas other options do exist that would have
a lower burden on students. So we can change the FAFSA (highly recommended) or
we can provide more education on the FAFSA and alternative methods, but one of
the two is definitely necessary.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2007/02/education-dynarski
2 comments:
I teach juniors and seniors and see similar lack of understanding when it comes to financial aid. Often students conflate financial aid and scholarships, thinking only the best and brightest can receive finanacial assistance in going to college; I truly think this is a major deterrant for students at my high school. In order to combat this, we had a College Night in the winter in which students and parents came up to the school and were given checklists of "The Steps to College," including filling out the FAFSA. Turn out was not great, but the people who came out were so appreciative of the information. If it does not already exist, I believe a highly publicized event for all Baltimore City upperclassmen would be incredibly helpful and significantly increase college attendees.
It is often said that education is a key that can open any door. Educating students and parents about college finance is the key to students not only starting, but finishing college. Being a first generation college student, my family did not know a heck of a whole lot about financial aid. In fact, I ended up having to leave college after matriculating for three years because it became to expensive to cover tuition. I returned to college years later and eventually graduated. It is very important to begin the college finance conversation early, starting in 8th grade, in my opinion. Awareness of options empowers students and their families to make informed decisions. Having this information available early could mean the difference between graduating from a university or dropping out.
Post a Comment