Student Financial Aid Sending More Money to Wealthy Families

[The Straight Story]

Student Financial Aid Sending More Money to Wealthy Families
Saturday, January 16, 2010

Public universities are increasingly giving more financial aid to students from relatively wealthy families instead of lower income homes in order to recruit academic achievers and boost the school’s reputation. The Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group, concluded in its latest report that public research universities increased aid to students whose parents made at least $115,000 a year by 28%, to $361.4 million, from 2003 to 2007.

The result of this shift in financial assistance has been shrinking diversity at some campuses. “It’s almost as if some of America’s best public colleges have forgotten that they are, in fact, public,” said Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust.

In 1980, the maximum Pell Grant, the primary federal grant program for low-income students, covered 77% of total costs at a four-year public university. Today a Pell Grant only covers 36% of the same costs, forcing low-income students and their families to come up with almost two-thirds of their college expenses.

In 15 of the 22 states The Education Trust examined, the top-ranked private institution had a higher proportion of minority students than the public university. For example, Stanford University was more diverse than the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University topped the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Columbia University bested the State University of New York at Buffalo.

http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Student_Financial_Aid_Sending_More_Money_to_Wealthy_Families_100116

[arcadian]

1. They deserve it more, they're better than us.

[ThomCat]

2. I went to SUNY at Buffalo as an Undergrad.

It does not surprise me that the administration there would use financial aid as just another tool to try to recruit wealthier students. It has always been a university trying to being bigger and more prestigious.

This really sucks!

So now local people who are poor in Buffalo are even LESS able to afford to go to the local public university. Of course this is going to affect minority communities the hardest, so UB ends up becoming even more disproportionately white as a result.

:(

I suppose this was somehow inevitable. The idea that Financial Aid is enough to allow poor students to pay for school was abandoned long ago. It was no longer about expanding opportunities. Take out loans instead and go into debt for the rest of your life.

Now, Financial Aid just reduces the cost of schools somewhat. So reducing that cost is now a reward for certain preferred students.

[spooky3]

3. Blame the magazine "rankings" of universities and departments.

Student test scores and similar factors play a role in these rankings. Universities that don't play ball to make sure they "make the numbers" lose applicants, and it's a vicious circle downward.

And, a lot of "public" universities receive less than 20% of their budget from the state, and this % has been decreasing for a long time. Someone's got to make up the difference.

For example:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/11559