Dive Brief:
- A new report from The Century Foundation with research data from the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, chronicles the ways low-income students end up with unexpected college costs they often cannot pay.
- Researchers find institutions often underestimate living expenses, the costs of books and supplies, and expenses relating to health care or family emergencies. The erroneously low cost of attendance estimates reduce the amount of aid students are eligible for and requires many to turn to outside work while completing their degrees.
- Students also face increasing costs as upperclassmen, because colleges make more grant aid available to first-year students at the expense of older students. Students also have trouble keeping up with eligibility requirements and financial aid rules from year to year; sometimes because they don’t realize they have to re-file the FAFSA.
Dive Insight:
There are many things colleges and universities cannot control when it comes to affordability, but improving estimates for college costs and providing more support and guidance for students who receive financial aid are two areas well within the realm of possibility. Wisconsin HOPE Lab researchers recommend the Department of Education calculate living costs for all colleges and universities with existing federal data and make those estimates available to the institutions.
Some institutions have seen great success with relatively small completion grants for low-income upperclassmen who otherwise might drop out because of gaps of just a few hundred dollars that they can’t overcome. This strategy, though, can help only a small portion of students who qualify.