College of Fine Arts sophomore Savanna Young-Norris would not have joined the Class of 2014 at Matriculation had she not appealed for more financial aid three times.
“I am the only child of a single, full-time student mother, and the first person on her side of the family to seek private education,” she said. “The only way I was going to college was if someone else was willing to support me.”
The economy’s slow recovery and the loss of federal loan and grant programs, compounded with university budget issues, have left more students in predicaments like Young-Norris’. Students struggling to afford college are finding themselves disappointed with their financial aid rewards and overwhelmed by debt.
Bob Giannino-Rancine, the chief executive officer of Boston’s Action Center for Educational Services and Scholarships, which aims to help students obtain the financial information necessary to afford a postsecondary education, said that a multitude of factors have prevented students from receiving enough aid, from families’ lack of understanding to limited federal and university funding.
“I think the most common thing we hear is the complexity of the process, the overall process of paying for college,” Giannino-Rancine said.
Young-Norris said she had sent her information to Boston University’s Office of Financial Assistance through CollegeBoard, only to discover that the organization sent her records to the wrong school. After appealing three times, she received enough grants and loans to attend.
Other students begin their college education with large loans. Hannah Park, a freshman in the College of Communication, said she received little aid despite her parents’ low incomes and had to take on an “unbelievable” amount of debt.
“My family members think I’m crazy for coming here, but I’m giving BU a shot,” Park said.
Many colleges struggle to provide sufficient aid for all students, Giannino-Rancine said. With shrinking budgets, some schools struggle to award need-based aid for students. Others choose to increase merit-based aid to cater to academically stronger applicants and to “raise the prominence” of their programs.
“I would not say that BU ‘struggles’ to provide financial assistance to its students, but there are certainly challenges and threats to BU’s ability to provide enough assistance,” said Julie Wickstrom, the director of Office of Financial Assistance, in an email.
In the 2010-11 academic year, BU awarded $187,552,745 of need-based aid and $26,100,264 of non-need based aid, according to common set data by BU’s Institutional Research.
BU has increased its financial aid funds to students over the years to compensate for increased need among students, Wickstrom said. However, the elimination of federally funded programs such as the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant and the Academic Competitiveness Grant this year resulted in a $1.7 million loss in federal financial aid to BU students.
The Federal Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, Perkins Loans, subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans and work-study remain at risk of elimination, she said.
Giannino-Rancine said colleges are facing increasing costs resulting from faculty structures and systems, building costs and other projects.
Increased costs also are the “result of schools trying to have the next great campus center, the next great athletic center that will help them compete against their peers,” he said. “It’s not any one thing. It’s not just schools not giving out financial aid because that’s just not the issue.”
“BU has to balance the needs of its students for financial aid and providing a world-class education,” Wickstrom said. “Providing a world-class education with excellent faculty, facilities and research opportunities cost money.”
While Giannino-Rancince said BU is “incredibly generous” in financial aid compared to other private universities, some BU students said they have trouble understanding how the university spends its money.
“I walk on campus every day and see a million things that could have been cut,” said Emily Hopkins, a junior in COM and College of Arts and Sciences.
Hopkins said unnecessary expenses, such as the new address signs on Bay State Road, remind her of how the Office of Financial Assistance gave her half of the money she requested in her summer appeal letter for the fall semester.
While colleges may not necessarily be able to hold off on some projects, Giannino-Rancine said they could help students by standardizing the financial aid process and making the process more “transparent” for students.
Giannino-Rancine said that like the Credit Card Reform Act, which requires credit card companies to provide standardized information to consumers, financial aid award letters should come with simple explanations of terms.
“That’s something that we believe strongly, and we would ask schools to make more transparent the way that they award financial awards to students,” he said.
Wickstrom recommended that students work toward bringing in more assistance at BU by contacting their legislators.
“Students should write to Congress and let them known how important student financial aid is to them,” she said. “They want to hear from you. It’s easy for them to dismiss students and their needs if they never hear from you.”
In the meantime, some students said they will reapply for financial aid in the spring.
“Hopefully, the people at BU financial services realize how much trouble my family is in and reconsider,” Park said. “After all this financial stress, I hope not to regret coming here.”
“I know that I’m really lucky,” Hopkins said. “I have friends who don’t know if they’re coming back every year because they don’t know if they’ll have enough aid.”
