If you have been reading some of those web stories of late, you might have known the general conception about getting college education financial aids and who gets the most of it. People usually believe that if you are poor you are the best of the lot, as you are entitled to receive most of the educational financial aid and those who are rich do not need the aid while if one belongs to the middle class they get screwed right out of their socks. But is there any proof that supports this?
According to a Princeton sociologist, low income minority students (particularly the African Americans and the Hispanics) gain preference over whites and Asians in terms of good grades and test scores. Even when the whites and Asians have grades similar to those of African Americans and Hispanics, they remain a step below in getting financial aid for college. As per the US News count, there are only 54 (out of a total of over 5,000 American colleges and universities promise to provide financial aid scholarships to college students for meeting educational expenses. It is interesting to note that most of the scholarships or financial aids offered by these colleges and universities go to middle class students and upper class students.
For instance, Harvard University charges not more than 10 percent from families that earn within a range of $180,000 per year. There are a few dozen other colleges and schools that low income families. These schools seem to be generous enough as they promise to provide educational financial aid to families with an annual income of around $40,000.
Therefore, there is a small number of college students that fulfill the eligibility criteria and are able to receive financial aid to bear their college education expenses. It is possible that a student with similar grades may not receive the aid as another student with those grades receives. The grades of a student are not the only deciding factor. They also must fulfill the family annual earning criteria as per the college's cut off. College students who get fulfill the eligibility criteria and get the college financial aid is very small. Apart from that, colleges and schools that are generous also exist in a very small number.
Take Princeton University for example. This year, 1,300 freshmen got enrolled at the university. A Postsecondary Education Opportunity analysis indicates that only 10% of the university's students come from low income families. In all, no more than 200,000 students are taken by these generous schools out of a total of 3 million freshmen who attend college every year. What does that prove? Most of the college students getting enrolled at these schools come from well-to-do families. The number of low-income freshmen who receive college financial aid scholarships does not go beyond 30,000, which is just 1% of the total number of college freshmen.
Those (99%) who get the remaining financial aid shaft include the poor and working class families. According to a recent research, it has come to light that families that earn an annual income of less than $70,000 do not receive grants or scholarship aid they are actually in need of. And the government has a stingy budget formula to calculate a student's annual need. It is really depressing to see the difference between the amount of grants received by students and the students' actual college education expenses.
Students belonging to families that earned $65,000 annually got $4,600 as college grants while the actual college cost amounted to $11,600. The family was supposed to contribute an amount of around $10,000 towards the student's college education costs. Even if the student decides to work and borrow, a gap of $1,443 remains. As for government calculations, families that earn around $35,000 can afford only $2,600 per year as college costs. However, the actual expenses including the student's tuition, boarding, books and travel cost around $20,000 per year. Good college students deserve to be awarded with financial aid scholarships and college grants, irrespective of their being rich or poor. However, there are some wealthy students that receive more education financial aid than the government estimated student college cost. In fact, there is a lot of financial aid available out there for students, but not enough merit award money for students with good grades.
