Low-income
college students are far more likely to drop out than better-off students and
lack of funds is usually the reason. A new report by the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation puts some of the blame on institutions for not providing sufficient
information in clear terms about the total cost of attendance and how much
financial aid students can expect.
Making College Affordable: Providing Low-Income Students with the Knowledge and Resources Needed to Pay for College lays out 11 recommended strategies for
colleges and universities to help lower-income applicants better understand
their options before they enroll and to assist them if they run into trouble
later on.
No. 9
on the list calls on schools to “utilize low-cost textbooks,” noting that high
course-materials expenses may “place a burden on students with unmet financial
need.” The report points to open educational resources as a potential solution,
although it acknowledges that “awareness of these alternative resources among
faculty tends to be low.”
The
report also endorses a five-pronged set of recommendations from the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group for encouraging adoption of open materials on campus.
The
first five strategies in the report advocate that institutions should furnish detailed,
jargon-free information about the types of financial aid available, eligibility
requirements for aid, total costs to attend for four years, and accurate
estimates of living costs, and also urge students to meet with a financial
adviser. Three strategies ask schools to prioritize need over merit in giving
aid, commit to providing aid for all four years, and stop cutting institutional
grants when students receive private scholarships.
The remaining
two strategies recommend that schools set up programs to help students with
financial emergencies and to find ways to integrate local social services with
financial-aid programs.
