financial aid and rants and raves

A few more random thoughts on this registration period: One of the problems we faced this term was the continued increase in tuition and the frozen financial aid rates. Pell has not gone up for 3 years at this point, and the formula has changed slightly so even if you did qualify, no now receive less than you would have a year ago. The college's tuition has increased for the past 3 years, and federal aid has not kept up. There are prevailing theories on why, most covering the increasing deficit or the conservative principle of abolishing the nanny state, etc. Some of the new formula has legitimate origins: taxes have decreased slightly for all, and that increases the money available for school. The actual decrease is fairly small, so the effect is primarily psychological. That doesn't make it any less pleasant, however. Generally, I'll blame the mess of this registration on these factors: the reasons I already listed in the previous entry, and the increased tuition. That may seem intuitive, but the power behind it runs deeper. Students who did qualify for small amounts of money now find that their aid will not cover the bill, and need to get more money to pay the difference. This partially explains the dramatic increase in loans we've been swimming though and the multiple visits needed. Also, the increase in tuition has forced people to apply for financial aid who would not have done so in the past, only to discover that they too will only qualify for loans. Obviously, this has increased our workload without increasing actual registration, but it has another, more pernicious, effect: these new applicants generally have higher incomes, so the college's average income per applicant has similarly increased. This in turn lowers our amount of discretionary aid: work-study and SEOG. As such, we have even less aid to give away without the change in the Pell formula. Translation? We're fucked either way. Later.