There is $130 Billion Available For Financial Aid, But...

Here's an article that appeared recently the school paper of Palo Alto. It details that, although there is a huuuuuuuge amount of financial aid out there ($130 Billion), receiving it is more competitive than ever.

When you're done with the article, mosey on over to www.CollegePlanningAdvice, which has important information you can use to see how you can get the inside track on qualifying for your share.

Here's the piece:

College tuition prices out of controlIncreasing college tuition places more stress on college bound students

Posted Mon Jan. 28, 12:42:16 PST 2008By Kevin Harvey of The Campanile
As most Palo Alto High School students know by now, the competition involved with college admissions is enormous and steadily increasing. Of the 2008 national graduating class of 3.2 million students, about 30 percent will attend a college or university, the largest number in United States history.

Many students resort to the help of private college counselors for guidance, reassurance and such preparation as aid in essay and application writing.

Last year, over 120,000 high school seniors applied to colleges and universities with the help of a private counselor. This increasing competition allows colleges and universities to raise their tuition and application prices.

As the competition and tuition prices continue to increase, the number of students who are able to attend colleges and universities will decrease. However, according to The College Board, there is more than $130 billion available for financial aid this coming year.

Despite this, financial aid will continue to be increasingly difficult to receive because of the increasing number of eligible applicants.

Private colleges and universities are being run like corporations, striving to gain profit and forgetting about providing their services for a reasonable fee. Universities are raising their tuition prices because they can, due to demand.

The price of tuition among private universities increased by 6.3 percent this year, while public colleges increased tuition by a drastic 6.6 percent, according to The College Board.
Moreover, The College Board recently announced that it will no longer support the Federal Family Education Loan Program, one of the largest student loan providers in the nation. After Oct. 15, the College Board refused applications.

According to The College Board, students should expect to pay between $95 and $1,404 more
for tuition this year than last year, depending on the type of college or university.

In 1990, the tuition price for an undergraduate student living on the campus of Stanford University was $14,280 per year. The tuition price increased about 300 percent to an astonishing $44,267 for the 2008 academic year.

Many people assume that this is because Stanford is expanding their facilities and needs to increase tuition prices to compensate.

These assumptions are incorrect. Almost all universities in the United States pay their expenses, including their staff members' salaries, with the fees they charge for application papers. The fee that they charge attending students for tuition is almost entirely for profit.

However, many universities, such as the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, are trying to prevent undergraduate tuition prices from increasing. But graduate school tuition prices have heavily increased to compensate for the profit lost through keeping the undergraduate tuition relatively low.

As tuition prices increase rapidly, many students apply for financial aid, but most students who apply for aid do not end up receiving it. This problem is most common among middle class families because their income is not low enough to make them completely dependent on financial aid, but not high enough to prevent them from struggling with payments and tuition costs.

If colleges and universities lowered their tuition costs, they would allow more students that were

previously dependent on financial aid to attend.
This would raise profit margins because universities would have more students attending who pay lower tuition costs.

This story originally appeared in The Campanile on January 28, 2008.

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