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Alejandra Mendoza Mr. Hackney Rhetoric 101 15 November 2013 Who Should Get Financial Aid? In recent discussions of financial aid, a controversial issue has arisen on how effective colleges and government programs distribute scholarships and grant money to college students. On one hand, Tressie McMillian Cottom argues that federal aid is confused as to who should receive funding money and has failed to better provide aid to students who are disadvantaged when it comes to paying for higher education. From this prospective, it is assumed that financial aids main purpose is meant to stop poverty and serve poor students who want to continue their education, but dont have the financial resources available to them. However, another side to this issue is that federal aid is failing to enable students to pursue an education due to the assets scholarships and grants consider when it comes to students applying for them. My own view is that financial aid should be better accessible to students who want to pursue a higher education. Though I concede that families who are under the poverty line may need more financial help to pay for college expenses than others, I still maintain that students who work hard and want to continue their education should be given an equal opportunity when it comes to receiving financial help, regardless of ones economic status. While some may say that financial aid has failed at its main purpose to aid students who are disadvantaged when it comes to paying for higher education, I say that financial aid has failed at being better accessible to students who want to pursue an education and make something out of themselves.

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Financial aid is what opens opportunity for many students who want to go to college to pursue a career. Many people turn to financial aid, like scholarships and grants, to help pay for higher education that alone they wouldnt be able to afford. According to Nicolas Barrs article, Students generally cannot afford to pay tuition fees and living costs. This is where financial aid starts to come into play. A lot of scholarships and grants can be obtained through a students desired school or they could be found in other organizations. Almost all scholarships and grants request certain criteria for the students who want to apply for them. Some well known assets that financial aid takes into consideration are ACT scores, race, GPA, athletics and academic success. With the assets and criteria that are requested by financial aid, one can only believe how competitive it is to receive money from limited resources. After graduating high school majority of students know what path they are headed on. These graduated students have committed to a good college, or have one in mind, know what they want to major in and have all the rest set out. The only problem is how all this will be paid for. Most families cannot afford to pay for college, even the wealthy, or better off, families have trouble paying for the expensive tuition and fees that come with a college education. Tressie McMillan Cottom in her article, How Aid Became a Middle-Class Entitlement, maintains that now a days the federal financial aid program is meant for middle class families and has lost its clear anti-poverty mission. However, I disagree with Cottoms view that financial aid has failed its anti-poverty mission, because they are limited resources out there available to students in general. It is impossible to give every college student enough financial aid to pay for college. The problem is not that financial aid distributing the aid to the wrong people; its that financial aid is distributing the aid at the wrong times. Mark Kantrowitz states that We should simplify the need analysis formulas and stop including assets when determining eligibility. Financial aid

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uses more complicated methods to verify if one qualifies for aid. Some scholarships and grants look for certain assets and ask essay questions that need to be responded with long and unnecessary answers. The formula that financial aid uses makes the process of distributing the aid lengthy and causes college students discouragement when applying to pricey universities. If these formulas werent used it would be much easier and less complicated for families and students to apply for financial aid. Attending college is not cheap and America knows it; thats why scholarship and grant money is so limited, because the demand for it is prominent. I agree that financial aid formulas should be simplified because through my own experience of applying for college, I think it is very important to have an idea of how much money one will be receiving from financial aid. Right now high school seniors are simply sitting on financial aid applications; not money. They have no idea if they will be awarded any money from the scholarships and grants they applied for. Theyre just hoping for the best. It would be a much easier process if financial aid omitted assets so that college students wouldnt have to wait only months before entering college, how much aid they will be awarded. Kantrowitz himself writes, Switching to an exclusive incomebased formula would allow financial aid application forms to fit on the back of a postcard. Kantrowitz is insisting that by omitting assets and simplifying formulas, applying for financial aid would be easier for the student and their family. Families would know already how much money their child would be receiving due to their income. And for the students, it would be easier to make their college decision already knowing how much aid they will receive. October is college application month and this is the time that many students go and apply to the colleges of their choice. While applying many students take in consideration location, majors, and most importantly cost. It is unfortunate though that majority of these students who

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are applying to their dream schools will not know if they will receive any type of financial aid until the upcoming year, a few months before most graduating high school students go into college. Colleges offer merit scholarships through the school itself and students are informed if they were granted these types of scholarships when getting accepted, but these scholarships are very limited. And again, when applying for merit scholarships, assets are taken into consideration. It is often said that when it comes to financial aid, assets are taken into consideration because of the limited amount of money there is out there. Kantrowitz argues, When assets are considered in these formulas, families can get discouraged about saving and making plans for the future. Though some may believe assets are a positive, Kantowitz directly states in his article that assets are a negative; they do not benefit those applying for financial aid. Another supporter of omitting assets, Lynn O'Shaughnessy, states in her article, Need-Based Calculations Are Flawed, that The methodologies used to calculate how much help families require for college are flawed in a variety ways. Although she does not directly speak of the use of assets in her article, it is clear that she is referring to them. Financial aids use of assets to calculate who gets financial aid and who doesnt is flawed. College is a great opportunity and many get lucky enough to take advantage of it, others are not so lucky. In the issue of financial aid it is unrealistic to believe that only families that are under the poverty line with students going to college deserve financial aid. Financial aid should be easily accessed by college students, it should be used to help students pay for college, not discourage them with the assets that are taken into consideration.

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Works Cited Kantrowitz, Mark. "Determine Need Using Income Alone." Room for Debate. The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. Barr, Nicholas. "Focus on Better Student Loans." Room for Debate. The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. McMillan Cottom, Tressie. "How Aid Became a Middle-Class Entitlement." Room for Debate. The New Yprk Times, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. O'Shaughnessy, Lynn. "Need-Based Calculations Are Flawed." Room for Debate. The New York Times, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.