The Financial Aid Revolution

Posted on September 19, 2008
Filed Under News, The Newspress Express | By Ari Finkelstein

Ask a room of college students about financial aid and you will start to hear grumbles (if not snarls) about private loan companies like Sallie Mae. Well, these complaints are finally being heard.

According to an article in the NY Times, a panel of experts has recommended a broad overhaul of the current financial aid system in favor of a policy that largely cuts out those private loan companies and their vampiric interest rates.

Among the major changes proposed is an abandonment of the FAFSA — a notoriously confusing determination of financial aid — in favor of the federal government accessing an applicant’s information through the IRS. Another notable proposition is that the federal government open and operate college savings accounts for low-income children.

According to Sandy Baum, a Skidmore College economics professor who served as co-chairwoman of the panel, “More tinkering with a system built piecemeal in the last century is no longer an option.” That said, we’ve yet to see what Congress and the political elite make of these revolutionary policies. With hundreds of billions of dollars being pumped into Wall Street this week alone, let’s hope there’s something left over for education.

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One Response to “The Financial Aid Revolution”

  1. MGW on September 21st, 2008 8:56 pm

    The FAFSA isn’t the worst part - the CSS is MUCH worse and is an absolute nightmare! It makes the FAFSA seem like a piece of cake. Worse yet, for those of us living places where home prices are astronomical, the CSS asks for home equity, while the FAFSA doesn’t. The FAFSA also doesn’t ask for non-custodial parent income, while the CSS does - and the colleges just add the divorced/separated parents’ incomes together without taking into account that they are paying two mortgages, etc.

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