Colorado’s method for helping low-income students pay for college needs to be fixed if policy-makers are serious about getting more students into college.
Almost 25,000 of our poorest college students didn’t receive any state financial aid last year. It’s a staggering statistic.
Research suggests low-income students often wait until the last minute to decide to enroll in college. Yet Colorado’s colleges and universities operate under a system that rewards early-bird applicants. When the money runs out, the late applicants are out of luck.
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education recently produced a troubling report, the first of its kind in more than a decade, that found only about one-third of Colorado students eligible for state financial aid actually receive it.
Last year, 44,278 of the 70,583 students eligible for state aid never got any, and 24,912 of them were in the lowest income bracket, qualifying for federal Pell Grants. “We’re inadvertently hurting some of the lowest income kids,” said CCHE chief Rick O’Donnell.
The amount of money the state provides to its low-income students, $77 million this year, is down from $91 million in 2003. The first thing the state can do – and is doing under the proposed budget for next year – is to increase state money for financial aid.
Then the question becomes: Can the money can be doled out more appropriately?
Currently, chunks of that $76.7 million are given to Colorado schools, which craft financial aid packages for applicants. The CCHE is studying a few possible solutions, including centralizing Colorado’s student aid under one roof, much like Minnesota. But campuses have balked at that proposal.
Another idea, which seems to make sense on paper if there is adequate funding available, would create a formula on which each student’s state aid is based. If a family earns less than a certain amount of money each year, the student will be given a set amount of money.
Campuses would still be able to craft their own financial aid packages to lure students, using their own money and other scholarships.
O’Donnell also would like to see state financial aid transferable within Colorado, since about two-thirds of all low-income students transfer schools at least once.
The CCHE report also highlights a national problem of bait and switch, where incoming freshmen are given nice financial aid packages only to see them sharply reduced, or eliminated, in their second and third years. The CCHE can change the financial aid rules without the legislature. So while we think the system needs fixing, we’d urge O’Donnell and his staff to work closely with campuses to develop a plan that works for them, rather than handing down unworkable mandates.
