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"We" didn't do just fine; rich kids did just fine because they were the ones who could afford to go.
In other words, you seem to be saying that it's fine for a C student to be able to go anywhere he can get in because his parents are rich. It's not fine for an A- student (would likely would not be in the top 5% at his school) to go to college because he can't afford it.
I understand that the current system is in shambles, but taking away financial aid for poor people is IMHO not the way to go.
The Pell Grant is just one small portion of the federal financial aid. Low income students have 100's of options to attend college for free. It is far easier for a low income student to afford college than a middle or upper middle class student. An A student from a low income family, likely a first generation student, has an easier time getting admitted to top colleges as well as having that college paid for. With the cost of attendance at state schools inching toward 30K and private schools over 50-60K--you have to be pretty rich to afford college with no help from scholarships, etc.
The current system is very fair and very heavily weighted toward those families making 60K or less.
in the 1700s and 1800s only the brighest attended school because only the brightest could get accepted based on limited seats.
Today, there's thousands of schools that are fighting to fill their seats so they have fairly low standards of admittance to accommodate. The fed just hands over money because they got accepted in the school. That's not the wisest use of taxpayer money. What's worse is these millions of students now go and under-perform at school and we still fund them. The majority of them leave their college career before completing. So now we have millions of half-educated folks.
I should have been more clear. I meant top 5% at each school should qualify. I don't think it's fair to compare inner city students directly to suburban students.
My previous idea was to scrap Pell Grant altogether. And just go with the second option of having interest-free loans for well-performing students with needs.
I'm not completely sold on federal financial aid. We went thousands of years without it and did just fine. But I don't expect us to all of a sudden yank it from a system which now (unfortunately) depends on it.
The US is not thousands of years old.
I am ok with Pell Grants as they serve those with the most need. I would like to see Pell Grants limited by credit, not by how many years it takes to obtain a degree.
I am ok with Pell Grants as they serve those with the most need. I would like to see Pell Grants limited by credit, not by how many years it takes to obtain a degree.
I really should have said hundreds... but the higher education did not start in the US.
Yes, the random state universities are just as bad as the random private universities (devry, strayer etc). I'm not referring to premiere state universities like UMich, Rutgers, UMD, PSU, etc.
By that, I mean there's an excess of schools popping up that are accepting greater numbers of students into college and in turn resulting in a higher number of applications for financial aid. Because the academic standard of these newer random universities are low, we're spending money on mediocre students.
Go back to when there were fewer universities that were accepting only the most competitive students. This wasn't a problem for the current financial aid system because only those who got into a university (and had a need) got funding. The problem about merit didn't exist.
Today with the excess schools, it does. Less students from lower tier universities go on to graduate studies.
The Pell Grant is just one small portion of the federal financial aid. Low income students have 100's of options to attend college for free. It is far easier for a low income student to afford college than a middle or upper middle class student. An A student from a low income family, likely a first generation student, has an easier time getting admitted to top colleges as well as having that college paid for. With the cost of attendance at state schools inching toward 30K and private schools over 50-60K--you have to be pretty rich to afford college with no help from scholarships, etc.
The current system is very fair and very heavily weighted toward those families making 60K or less.
Note, I was responding to specific posts from NJBest. He seems to think it is not a problem for rich kids with mediocre grades to go anywhere while poor kids with decent grades may not be able to afford to go anywhere (if we were to eliminate all federal aid, which he supports).
But Golfgal, please cite your sources that show that low-income students have "hundreds of options to attend college for free." If they have the grades and test scores to be admitted to an Ivy League school, maybe (although it depends on how you define "low-income" -- how are YOU defining it?).
The current system is very fair and very heavily weighted toward those families making 60K or less.
Maybe this is detracting from the topic a bit, but the problem with that is a family making $60K per year would still struggle to put 1, much less several children through college. After taxes, a family making $60K per year might have a take home pay of $50K. From that money, they have to take care of housing and utility costs, transportation, food and health care. After all that, it would be difficult to even gather $10K together to pay for tuition and fees at a public college (and that's on the low-end of the scale - Penn State charges $16K for in-state students). And you have to do that every year...for 4-5 years. Ouch.
My point being it sure wouldn't hurt to have some grant money offered to these families as well. Because they can't take on the expense of college tuition themselves. Of course this is because the cost of college tuition is just ridiculous in most cases. But now we enter into a circular logic situation because the colleges are comfortable raising tuition as long as students can easily obtain student loan monies.
Note, I was responding to specific posts from NJBest. He seems to think it is not a problem for rich kids with mediocre grades to go anywhere while poor kids with decent grades may not be able to afford to go anywhere (if we were to eliminate all federal aid, which he supports).
But Golfgal, please cite your sources that show that low-income students have "hundreds of options to attend college for free." If they have the grades and test scores to be admitted to an Ivy League school, maybe (although it depends on how you define "low-income" -- how are YOU defining it?).
I agree. I was a low-income college student. The biggest issue I faced is the utter lack of guidance and help navigating the world of higher education. My teachers and guidance counselors offered little help. My family offered no help. I'm not blaming the outcome of my life on them (hey, at least I graduated...which is a lot better than many low-income students far). However, I borrowed a LOT of money when I really didn't need to.
My first school turned out not to be a good fit at all. When I opted to leave, and go to community college, I also lost the merit scholarships that I initially had. When I returned to university, the only thing I had in my financial aid package was government aid. As a transfer student, you just don't have so many scholarships available to you. Colleges tend to offer great scholarships to incoming freshman with the intention that they'll complete their entire college careers with them. That's just how it is.
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