Financial Aid and What Obama’s Reforms Mean For it
By Marcel A Johnson
Having a college degree is a necessity in these times. With the increasing importance of education, the prices of the educational institutes are also increasing. Due to the stagnant student aid, students are forced to borrow more for their college education.
Since the last 12 years this rate has been increasing. In 1996, about one-third of the students needed to borrow loan to pursue their college education with an average debt load of about $13,000. And in 2008, over two-thirds of the students had to borrow loans for their college, and the debt load has increased over $23,000. To boot the amount of students who are borrowing more than $25,000 has increased from 4 percent to 24 percent in the same time span. This amount of loan debt can have serious and lasting consequences for the students.
The Department of Education has reported that each year over 400,000 students that are well qualified high school graduates choose not to go to college due to financial barriers and the amount of loan that they would need to borrow.
However, President Barack Obama released a plan for the education budget which makes the most historic and profound investment into student aid ever seen. The Fiscal Responsibility Act makes huge increases to the Pell grant. The Pell grants when it was originally created in the 70s could fund about 72 percent of the college education but due to the economic recession it is reduced to about 32 percent.
By increasing the Pell grant from $5500 in 2010 to $6900 by 2019, more college students will have access to community college, and more students will have access to the Pell grants, opening the door and promise of a college education.
Also, community colleges have been the global institutions which are under appreciated and underfunded for so many years. By making investments in the community colleges, now we can make sure that we are developing the decrease that we need to fill the jobs as our economy is recovering.
And by creating a robust Perkins loan program, schools can steer students away from private student loans that have much more unfavorable terms and conditions where they cannot normally receive government grants.
If you’re stuck and need some help finding good information online try using Financial-Aid-Directory.com for finding the latest information on financial aid to help you when you need it most.
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