3 Responses to “Want to increase enrollment? Try this …”

1. Colette Says:
   October 7th, 2009 at 6:13 pm

   The lack of quality education is the real reason low income students do not pursue higher education. Low income students are not expected to graduate high school, so how can they attend college? The expectation of the teachers, students and community is not for them to become productive community members so why invest? The low income communities have some of the worst teachers, administrators, resources available to become successful high school graduates. Please note I do not mean 100% of the low income students, teachers and community. There are definitely inequities that exist. How do we overcome those inequities?

2. Didi Says:
   October 8th, 2009 at 10:09 am

   I think people are scared of the FAFSA because they think it’s like a tax return form, and they’re scared of tax forms. With tax forms, if you don’t do them right, you could end up paying interest and penalties.

   The education community needs to promote the form as simple and straightforward, which it is. All people have to do for the income part is copy a few lines from their tax returns and W-2 forms–and the FAFSA even tells you what lines to copy! Assets are basically just adding up what you have in the bank or other accounts, and for low-income families (under $50000) who can file a short form, the assets don’t even count! Most of the form is demographics – names, addresses, ssn’s, marital status, etc. and then there’s a little bit about the student’s college intentions.

   A high school student should easily be able to complete this form, and IMHO, if a high school graduate can’t simply copy information from one form to another, there is something terribly wrong with our K-12 educational system!

   I was a very low income student, and the financial aid applications were much more complex then than they are today, and there were 2 of them–a BEOG form, that was free, that you used to apply for what is now the Pell grant, and a PCS or FFS form, which you had to pay to have processed to get any other aid. On the PCS, not only did you have to fill in income information, but you had to report your home value and debt, and even the makes and years of cars your family owned. I did them easily while still a high school student–so why are high school students and/or their parents now unable to complete a single, much simpler form? They’ll only get it done if someone does it for them? And even then, it’s only getting done because they HAVE to do tax forms. High school counselors and college financial aid officers are always available to help people complete the forms, but the statistics in the article show that people don’t even take advantage of these free opportunities. We shouldn’t have to bring the mountain to Mohamed!

3. Robert Says:
   October 8th, 2009 at 10:16 am

   The inequities that exist that Colete observed in her 10/7/09 reply post are correct, but would like to add another perspective…Many (not all) of the low income prospective students that apply for financial aid eligibility beginning with FAFSA have a mentality of education entitlement in spite of their lack of academic preparation and quality education that will no doubt limit and hinder their college performance. This is not all their fault however…the American education establishment/culture the last generation or so has put its two cents in with this American cultural phenonmenon and has facilitated this faulty mindset. One symptom of this attitude is that many applicants receiving for instance, subsidized government student loans, borrow up to the maximum amount each academic year for which they are eligible, rather than go the more recommended route, and borrow the amount that will cover their tuition, fees and textbooks, and also for educational purchases, like for computers and printers for distance learners. These prospective students are counseled by college financial aid advisors that there are borrowing caps for undergraduate and graduate students eligible to receive student loans. Money does not grow on trees, but many of these students fail to or don’t want to take heed of that reality. The prudent ones that take the long term view and borrow up to the maximum amount each year against that total borrowing cap do the following. They take the reimbursement check they receive from the lender and invest the difference (i.e., what reimbursement amount they received minus what they need for school), in an interest-bearing instrument like a money market, CD, or conservative yielding fund to enable them better to pay back the loans in the future. Oftentimes, what students with the typical short term entitlement view do is spend that “difference” on non-related personal expenses and purchases and reach their cap sooner without nothing to show from their schooling. The results are that the “chickens come home to roost.” They typically fail out of school and have to go into loan repayment and thus dig themselves a deeper hole than they ever had before they started college. The federal government (whose Department of Education fueled this mindset, even though they had good intentions) is fast finding out about this loan money gravy train practice, and has been tightening up their standards for students applying for loan monies to finance their education. They (the government) are realizing that they must turn down and even turn off the faucet that is getting abused by those who cloak their motivations for receiving tax-payer funded federal student loans, with wanting to earn a college degree. Education is not an entitlement, but a privilege that’s earned through academic merit, hard work and proven performance. Re-aligning college student assistance programs with that basic premise would be a good start. Like a Russian saying goes, “Someone has to get out in the cold and sweep the streets.”

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