Middle-Income Families: Making the Financial Aid Process Work Colorado Springs CO

Middle-Income Families: Making the Financial Aid Process Work

by Richard Woodland, Director of Financial Aid, Rutgers University Camden Campus

A report from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (August 2001) took a close look at how middle-income families finance a college education. The report, Middle Income Undergraduates: Where They Enroll and How They Pay for Their Education, was one of the first detailed studies of these families. Even though 31 percent of middle-income families have the entire cost of attendance covered by financial aid, there is widespread angst among middle-income families that while they earn too much to qualify for grant assistance, they are too financially strapped to pay the spiraling cost of higher education.

First, we have to agree on what constituted a ""middle-income"" family in that report. For the purposes of the federal study, middle income is defined as those families with incomes between $35,000 and $70,000. The good news is that 52 percent of these families received grants, while the balance received loans. Other sources of aid, including work-study, also helped close the gap.

So how did these families do it? Is there a magic bullet that opens the door to significant grants and scholarships?

A matter of choice
One way a family can make college more affordable is by choosing less expensive colleges. In this income group 29 percent choose to enroll in low- to moderate-cost sc...

Author: Alan Frost

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