Don't you just love the Financial Aid game? With the cost of college rising by over twice the rate of inflation or more every single year, savvy parents shuffle their assets around upon the advice of educational consultants and financial advisors in order to appear less wealthy and get better aid packages for their college-bound kids. Then schools change their formulas to counter creative rebalancing strategies, and the game goes on and on, like a chess match. All the while, more and more qualified students cannot afford college at all, due in part to the stringent financial aid formulas used by public and especially private colleges. Is the pain of increasing college costs ever going to end or should we just start looking for newer models of education, such as vocational academies, home schooling and distance learning? That remains to be seen and I believe that we should keep an open mind to any and all solutions. However, recently there have been some small but positive steps taken at several leading universities to make it easier for lower income families to get financial aid.
Harvard University has announced that it will be removing the parental contribution from the financial aid formulas for low-income families, which means getting need-based grants will be significantly easier for them to achieve. Families whose income is less than $40,000 can expect about $2,300 per year in additional financial aid, while families that earn less than $60,000 will see roughly $1,200 in additional aid.
Jim Boyle, CEO of College Parents of America, a non-profit organization which represents parents of college and college-bound students, notes that "Harvard's decision to remove the parental contribution for low-income students is a ground-breaking initiative....When combined with recent announcements by the University of Virginia and The George Washington University - to promote more student grants and provide a locked-in, four-year tuition guarantee, respectively - it appears that the tide of ever-escalating college costs, with no relief in sight, is beginning to turn."
While this is a nice step forward and good example of leadership by these schools, I still question the true commitment of schools, since they are so tied in with government and financial services industry interests. This is a small step forward, but due to greed, competitive to out-do other schools, and tuition-pressuring forces beyond the control of schools alone, we remain cautious more so than optimistic about what the future holds for college costs.
