I was reading the HuffPost article Texas Group Will Offer Scholarships To White Men Only and was stopped cold by the distressing ignorance of the financial aid process in the United States. The misinformation is not just on the part of the scholarship group, whose mission is to "provide monetary aid to those that have found the scholarship application process difficult because they do not fit into certain categories or any ethnic group." It also is rampant through the comments section:
ideally, we would have ZERO raced based scholarships or grants, but would give aid to those most in need, based on how much they needed
That is ideal; in fact, it is the main way undergraduate financial aid is distributed. It's called "need-based aid," a helpful term for anyone currently seeking assistance (more below).
I can't get any scholarship whatsoever, and I most certainly have no family money paying the bills... If you are poor and white you aren't that different from poor and hispanic/black/asian etc.
There are many scholarships targeting white students already (and the more the merrier, frankly, let's get everyone funded). But nothing trumps financial need in the search (the shocking but helpful range defining "need" is below).
you know there are no scholarships for the disabled? Non for the adult returning to university? Non for the single father? But there are for the single mother. Why cant there be scholarships for them?
How is it possible to even assume this, much less not Google it to see how much financial aid, in fact, there is for all of the above?
It is possible because financial aid information, like all other college access information in the United States, is poorly disseminated, fragmented across multiple platforms and fraught with old wives' tales.
If you are trying to figure out how to pay for college—yours or someone else's—please follow me across the jump.
MY BACKGROUND
I am a college success professional. "College success" is an inclusive term beginning with the "access" years (mainly middle and high school) and continuing through college graduation, post-grad and transition to career. It is distinct from simply "college access," which focuses often on just getting 11th and 12th graders into college, but not getting them through and out of it. Over the past 25 years, I have taught in public school, counseled individual students, founded and funded college access programs in New York and Los Angeles, mentored for non-profits and founded and funded my own college success network, The CLIC. My career, which pays for this lifelong passion, has been the entertainment industry, including, over the past 17 years, TV production.
THE FRICTION
When I hear white students' concern that they will not qualify for financial aid, I am so frustrated, for personal and professional reasons. On the personal side, during the nearly two years I was a classroom teacher, I met a number of exceptional students, including Laura (pseudonym), an incredibly bright girl who was great at dance and a volleyball captain, who aced my class and had about a 3.2. When I asked her freshmen year where she was looking at for college, she said she couldn't go because her family was middle class. I told her not to worry, there was always financial aid, and she said, "I don't qualify for that; I'm not Black." I often saw her after that, and four years later, in fact, she still was in that mindset and ultimately did not go to university. I regularly explained what I will explain next in this diary, but she could or would not hear it. She was so angry and hurt that "only Black kids" got scholarships! She couldn't even look at the overwhelmingly white statistics on the campuses all around us and the equally massive numbers that were receiving financial aid. She had been bottle-fed the Kool-Aid since her youth, and facts could not get in the way of the resulting friction. She ended up all right, but I still am sad, a little, for the incredible experience she didn't have at one of the terrific schools she could have gotten into and attended. I could not bear the lost possibility for such a confident and curious girl.
On the professional side, I am frustrated because the lack of understanding about financial aid so often stems from a lack of training, lack of dedication or lack of integrity I have sometimes seen in the keepers of the treasure. So many teachers and counselors do not know, and have no access to, clear, updated information on financial aid for the vast array of students they serve! Other teachers are selective about those with whom they will share their knowledge. And other professionals are intentionally destructive, as was the case in the district I taught in, where students would come to me for application help because a teacher or counselor had refused to complete forms, insisting the student "was not Stanford material," or "would never get into UC," or "could not afford to go to college"!
THE FACTS
So how does any student fund college? It is hard work! But it is do-able and, I believe, necessary, to compete financially in the new millennium, to exist in our increasingly global society, and to self-actualize in a relatively safe and amply stocked academic and experiential environment. Let's walk through at a very basic level (believe it or not, the below is really surface-level, but it's critical information):
1) KNOW THE TERMS.
"Financial aid" is an umbrella term that includes: scholarships and grants, which you don't pay back; and loans, which you do pay back.
"Expected Family Contribution (EFC)" is the amount of money a college expects you to pay towards your education. This is initially determined by the government when you complete a federal form called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). It is not based on your family's income but on assets vs liabilities (that's why later siblings get better aid packages than the first to go to college). Once it's calculated, your EFC is the same whether you apply to a low-cost or a wildly expensive campus. Institutions also may use the CSS Profile or their own forms to calculate what you are expected to pay.
Your "financial aid package" will be sent by colleges that accept you, indicating your EFC, the financial aid mix they are offering, and sometimes work-study (campus-coordinated employment that goes toward the cost of your education). As excited as you are about getting accepted, it is the financial aid package that will help most students select their chosen campus.
"Need-Based Aid" is the predominant source of financial aid in undergraduate education. It is directly tied to one's EFC, not family income. For example, a middle class family making, say, $80k/year, that is paying for a house and already has one child in college, would have a relatively low expected family contribution.
"Performance-Based Aid" is often called "merit-based," but as a person of color, the term "merit" doesn't always have great connotations for me. This is directly tied to one's ability, from academics to sports to the arts to public speaking, etc. It can be a one-time scholarship for an essay you have to submit or a full package, e.g., an athletic scholarship.
"Affiliation-Based Aid" is a loose term for aid that is connected to a group with which you are affiliated. The main focus here are legacies, the children or close relatives of alumni of an institutions. Other affiliations include: ethnicity (including many white ethnic groups, such as Italian-, Irish- and Greek-Americans); religion; children of unions members and government employees; community and fraternal organizations (such as Girl Scouts, the Rotary), etc.
A "free ride" or "full ride" is an all-expenses paid ticket to go to college. That means books, housing and, often, two round-trip tickets home a year. Many confuse this with a "tuition waiver," which only wipes out tuition.
2) THE SOURCES. You will want to go after three sources of aid:
"Campus-based." Nearly every college offers their own scholarships and grants. Some are automatically distributed to applicants; others require you independently apply. Be sure to check the financial aid section of EVERY campus to which you apply and investigate the opportunities and process for getting money directly from the school.
"Government-based." From federal and state grants (e.g., the Pell and the Cal Grant A) to military scholarships and more, there is more money for you. Submitting the FAFSA begins the process of a number of government grants (when you receive your Student Aid Report with your EFC, for instance, it will advise if and how you should apply for the Pell).
"Private/Personal." Hunting for the millions of other scholarships is its own full-time job. This is where the early and diligent birds can add up a giant bucket of scholarship worms to pay for school. Apart from online sites, the best place to start is with the local scholarships in your counseling office (call the district if necessary) - some scholarship recipients are even hand-picked by the counselors or principals themselves (serious gatekeeping on those). Reaching out to local businesses, religious groups, your parent or guardian's place of work is another crucial tool.
3) THE CALENDAR. Paying for college is easiest when it starts early. As in elementary school. Here's a calendar for the student and family.
Elementary and Middle School. College savings can go into an IRA if your state has options there. If it's not a dedicated college plan, you don't want to put money (or have people contribute money) to an account in your student's name. Student assets take a far heavier hit for expected contributions than parent/guardian assets! Also, if you don't know, find out your mix of ethnic and religious heritages, explore it, and get engaged - white students must do this, too!
9th and 10th Grade. Unless your family needs it, don't work once you are old enough! Use that time instead to excel in a particular field of accomplishment, commit long-term to a service project/organization and get fantastic grades. (The financial aid reward for that far outweighs the relatively low income of the early jobs.) Begin working with a college counselor no later than the fall of sophomore year - check the National College Access Network (NCAN) for non-profits in your area and check your counseling office, as well.
11th Grade. Begin the financial aid search no later than fall of junior year. Also, take the PSAT this year in order to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship. (Many schools will prep you for this earlier, but the scholarship only applies to 11th grade test-takers.) Some scholarship applications will begin this year (a few even earlier). This is the year to get the list of local scholarships and put together a task list and deadline calendar - the bulk of that information will be the same the next year, and you will have had a whole year, or at least a summer, to plan your essays, prep your portfolio, find old documents, and more.
12th Grade. In the fall, you will be overwhelmed with the application process. Don't get tunnel vision! Yes, many admissions applications are due by January. But none of this matters if you can't pay for school. You absolutely have to have a scholarship list and plan in place by October and keep chipping away at those apps, too. In January, when the FAFSA comes out, get it done IMMEDIATELY. Families can always refile if estimates are off. But schools are waiting for that EFC to put aid packages together, and that aid is first-come/first-served. Don't even think about turning in the FAFSA March 31, even if that's the school's stated deadline. Many are going to have earlier deadlines "for scholarship consideration." Drop everything in life to complete the FAFSA and any campus-based aid apps. And keep filling out admissions apps for schools with late or rolling or open deadlines.
4) THE STRATEGY. How exactly do you optimize your chance of being able to pay for college? Let's break it down.
Get GREAT GRADES. Nothing will do more for zero-debt after college than having insanely high grades. That's not just because you will be eligible for way more scholarship than just need-based ones. It's because if you have a strong academic record, and you combine it with excellence in a field and commitment to service, you are eligible to go to an elite institution. And elite institutions have endowments. And that means they have an entirely different set of financial aid rules.
Many elite private institutions require NO (zero, zip, nada, niente) expected family contribution of low-income families. For some elites, low-income is $45k; for others it is $60K (see their sites). In general, if you qualify for school lunch, and you get into an elite, your EFC will be $0.00. For middle class families, the news is fantastic, too. Elites have a sliding scale for family contributions that caps out at 10% of income. That scale may range from $120k to $200k, depending on the school. That means you may be expected to pay no more than $12,000 for your student to go to an elite - versus the $20,000 a public institution may cost! For low- to middle-income families, it absolutely can be cheaper to go to Yale than to go to state school. But you have to get in. And that is so much more than grades and test scores - or the scope of this diary. But if you are a rock star who has been told "you can't afford to go," please apply!
A special note to undocumented students - of course you can go to college in the U.S.! You don't qualify for government aid, so if you are low-income, once again, be excellent and apply to private elites. Not all even ask for documentation, but you always can apply as an international student. There are fewer spots, and there's less aid. But it is a door that is open with money on the other side for which you are legally eligible.
Start early and work constantly. Financial aid is not a form you submit senior year. It is a lifelong strategy. If your family is not on-board, then make the choices you have to make to get your own money. That means collecting opportunities, making a spreadsheet, constantly updating it, working on your essay writing, finding a program to help you and never believing the naysayers who are mistaking the falsehoods they believe to be true for actual facts.
Yes, you can go to college. Yes, there are scholarships for you. Yes, it is incredibly hard work. Yes, it is worth it.
Lots more at my blog - I will find a way to condense this and cross-post there, as well.
Updated by dmitcha at Sun Feb 27, 2011, 09:39:27 AM
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