Financial aid panel calls for reforms that may solve Hopkins students' monetary issues

By: Trang Vu

Posted: 10/2/08

The Rethinking Student Aid Study Group, comprised of financial aid officers from around the country, released a set of proposals last week for reforms in federal financial aid.

The Hopkins financial aid office has expressed concern with the current financial aid process.

"We have received feedback from students and parents saying they had a difficult time understanding the aid application process, and we are currently looking at ways to simplify our own policies," Vincent Amoroso, director of the Office of Student Financial Services, wrote in an e-mail. "However, with the federal government being the driving force behind the look and feel of the FAFSA, there is only so much we can do."

The Study Group offered suggestions that, instead of the Free Application for Student Aid, colleges should get financial information through the IRS, that Pell Grants should be determined solely by family size and gross income rather than by family assets, that families should be alerted every year of the aid their children are eligible for, and that the number of federal scholarships should be cut so that Pell Grants can be more generous.

"It's a persistent puzzle that fewer people go to college than really ought to," Rethinking Student Aid Researcher and Assistant Professor of Education at Vanderbilt Will Doyle said. "If you look at going on to higher education, it's one of the best investments we could possibly make."

Amoroso said his office has been reviewing financial aid policies to facilitate the procedure.

"We are currently in the process of reviewing our aid policies and how we communicate and interact with students," Amoroso said. "Without a doubt, our goal is to try and take a complex process and to make it as user friendly and understandable as possible. However, this isn't always easy when your biggest partner is the federal government."

According to Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the federal government needs to ensure that aid is going to students looking to go into the for-profit sector, or those who otherwise plan to make use of this investment.

"The federal government has an enormous responsibility to ensure only quality institutions are participating in federal programs," Nassirian said. "I don't think they're doing a good job today and I would call for tightening of requirements so that students are not cheated out of their student aid dollars."

But otherwise, he said, he was in full support of the suggestions, especially for the elimination of the FAFSA.

Here at Hopkins, most of the students interviewed agree with Nassirian.

"Overall, I think that trying to eliminate FAFSA would be a good thing because I have a younger brother in college and so the weekend where it comes time to fill out the FAFSA is always problematic because there's two times the paperwork," senior Aru Sahni said. "You already spend so much on taxes; A lot of it's just redundant so I don't see a problem with ... releasing records to Hopkins, for example."

The timing of the FAFSA's due date is also particularly inconvenient, students said.

"It is a bit frustrating when you're trying to get ready to get back to school and you have the FAFSA to worry about in addition to all the other paperwork that goes into the starting of the school year," sophomore Rachel Trusty said.

For incoming freshmen, it is also difficult to handle the FAFSA in the rush of their high school senior year, according to freshman Lyndon O'Connor.

For parents that handle their own salaries, the FAFSA is also unnecessarily difficult.

"I think making it easier would be definitely a good idea," junior Tashi Rowe said. "I know my parents own their own business and so it's really hard to fill out FAFSA."

Senior Cassandra Mickish also noted from the experiences of her friends that the FAFSA requires much parent involvement, since the family's tax information is not always accessible or familiar to the students themselves. The FAFSA then becomes even more difficult if the parents are not supportive of their children, she observed.

Since the proposals are directed to encourage first-generation immigrant students and low-income students, they actually would affect many students at Hopkins directly.

According to Nassirian, the current federal financial aid application process is too complex, so much so that it discourages low-income and first-generation immigrant students.

"If your dad is an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, they curse under their breath, but they will work through the nightmare that FAFSA has become," he said. "But it is the children of immigrants, the children of low-income parents, it's folks who don't have that ability, who are simultaneously most dependent on student aid, who look at it frankly as a message that college isn't right for them. In some ways it is the most negative message we could send to low-income Americans."

Doyle further explained that the problem is actually a combination of a convoluted application process and a lack of financial aid.

"Low-income students turn out to be more sensitive to changes in price than other groups. We're talking about middle and upper income students talking this over with their families; They're just trying to figure out how they're going to go to college," he said. "But for a lot of low income people the decisions is whether or not they're going to go at all."

The FAFSA can also be inaccurate because of its intricacy, some Hopkins students found.

"It's just kind of up in the air, because one person can get this much but this person can get a lower amount, even though they may be in the same class," sophomore Casey Blythe said.

Daniel Mickish, a Hopkins parent, was supportive of eliminating the FAFSA. He provided a FAFSA story Hopkins parents may have in common.

"I spent about two hours over the Internet on a preliminary form which determined whether it was likely that Cassie would be eligible for aid," he said. "After spending two hours on that there was a cryptic answer at the end saying 'No.' I thought it was absurd to ask for an enormous amount of information without giving any indication along the way of whether aid was likely or not."

Mickish would have taken a different approach than Rethinking Student Aid, he said.

"I think all aid ought to be eliminated, forcing the universities, the colleges, to substantially reduce their tuition and that other non-governmental resources be used to provide students that have the greatest likelihood of success," he proposed.

One Hopkins senior who asked to remain anonymous disagreed with the elimination of FAFSA.

"I think this will do the opposite of streamlining [the financial aid application process], even if FAFSA is onerous," she said.

She argued that in college there is similar paperwork and similarly arduous processes to go through. If people get discouraged by the financial aid process then perhaps they are not likely to do well in college, she reasoned.

Doyle, however, said he feels that everyone deserves to go to college, whether or not they can manage their FAFSA paperwork.

"If you could provide sufficient funding so that [low-income families] are not pushed away by the sticker price and make sure they're aware of the options that are available much earlier, it's going to result in a lot more students going on to higher education," he said.

And, he said, America needs all the college students and, particularly, college graduates it can get.

"A lot of jobs where you can make a decent living with a high school diploma: Those are going away, and they're not coming back," Dole said.

The need is even greater during this time of American economic trouble. More people graduating from college might actually help the American economy.

"We're going to need workers that can fulfill that goal if we're going to maintain our position in the global economy. And right now we're not doing that, we're actually being surpassed the enrollment of young people by other countries for the first time in our history," Doyle said.

Andrew Reschovsky, another researcher involved in Rethinking Student Aid and a professor of public policy and administration at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said simply the reason why Rethinking Student Aid put out the report.

"We're the land of opportunity, and if you have the ability and the desire, then you should be able to pursue higher education. Just the fact that your parent happened to be poor then that shouldn't deprive you of the opportunity you deserve now," Reschovsky said.

So the Rethinking Student Aid Study Group got to work.

According to Reschovsky, a task force was composed of scholars specializing in finance and higher education, with funding from CollegeBoard and a foundation, convened, defined leading financial aid issues, and invited other scholars to perform background research and find possible reforms. The result was the report released last Thursday and its proposals.