America’s "Peicemeal, Rickety" Financial Aid System Needs Overhaul, Says CollegeBoard Group
Posted on September 30th, 2008
A report by the Rethinking Student Aid Study Group at the non-profit CollegeBoard has blasted the U.S. financial aid system, calling it "peicemeal" and "rickety."
"There's a growing recognition that the federal student aid system is simply too complicated," The report's co-author Sandy Baum told the Christian Science Monitor. Baum is an economics professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "We're seeing proposals in Congress; we're seeing the Department of Education talk about simplification…. People are really ready to do something more dramatic to the system."
"We believe that the most important purpose of student aid is to expand the educational opportunities available to those young people and adults who face financial barriers to college enrollment and success," the report's authors said at the CollegeBoard website. In their estimation, the federal government is failing to do that despite spending $86 billion a year on financial aid at the moment.
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