The federal student-aid system makes college possible for a lot of people. It is also needlessly complicated and confusing.
That’s the position of a group of higher-education professionals, policy experts, and researchers that issued recommendations this month for revamping the federal student-aid system.
The Rethinking Student Aid study group was coordinated by the College Board but worked independently under the leadership of Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst at the College Board, and Michael S. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation, which supports research on education.
The group’s report, “Fulfilling the Commitment: Recommendations for Reforming Federal Student Aid,” was two years in the making.
It focuses on simplifying the financial-aid system and directing more of its resources toward the neediest students rather than those in the middle class.
The group suggested big changes — not “just tinkering around the edges” of the current system, says Donald E. Heller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. “Obviously that raises the question of how practical they’d be.”
In its report, the study group says policy makers should:
- Get rid of the complex Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, and base students’ eligibility for Pell grants on data from their families’ income-tax returns. That would increase access to such aid; the current form is seen as a barrier for families that are not well-versed in finance or are not native English speakers.
- Base the size of Pell grants on families’ adjusted gross income and size, and link eligibility to the federal poverty level.
- Replace a host of federal programs with one grant given to colleges on the basis of their success retaining Pell-eligible students. Expand the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program in the states.
- Eliminate federal subsidies covering interest on the loans of some borrowers while they are still in college, and introduce subsidies during the repayment period. All repayment plans would be graduated, with borrowers making smaller payments at first and larger ones later. A backup option would exist for graduates whose income is insufficient to cover their graduated payments.
- Use government funds to create savings accounts for lower-income children to help them pay for their college education.
- Create one tax credit covering both tuition and a fixed amount of college-related living expenses, and do away with the option of a tax deduction.
The study group plans to draw attention to its suggestions over the next six months, Mr. McPherson said. In the short term, it hopes to at least shift the conversation about federal student aid.
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 55, Issue 6, Page A21
