CONTRARY TO REPORT, SCHOOLS LIKE MC OFFER OPPORTUNITIES TO
LOW-INCOME STUDENTS
Release Date: January 9, 2002
The buzz in the higher
education community as the year 2002 begins is the reaction to a report released Monday by the
Lumina Foundation for Education titled “Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access
Among the 50 States.”
The report suggested
that most private colleges are out of reach for low-income students, but that couldn’t be
further from the truth, according to a wide variety of higher education officials, including
Jayne Whiteside, director of financial aid at Monmouth College.
At Monmouth College,
Whiteside said 99 percent of students receive some form of financial aid, and she added that
the Lumina report was misleading when it made the assumption that low-income students “would
get no worse than the average-size institutional grant aid.”
“They’re using average
aid for the neediest kids,” she said. “Of course their figures are going to show it’s
unaffordable. What actually happens is quite different. In general, grants and scholarships
that go to the neediest students make it very affordable for them, and in some cases provide a
credit balance that enable the students to buy their books or cover personal expenses.”
In 1999-2000, 84
percent of full-time undergraduates at four-year independent colleges and universities had all
or part of the cost of their private college education offset by some form of student aid,
with an average award per student of $14,000. This average award is 28 percent higher than it
was just four years earlier.
“The report is much
like a weatherman who forecasts rain, but fails to see the sun is shining outside the window,”
said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities.
“The nation’s private
colleges and universities are committed to the goals of affordability to a quality high
education,” he continued. “In 1999-2000, private institutions provided $8 billion in student
financial aid from their own resources, more than their students received from all federal and
state grant aid combined … Reports such as this one add nothing but confusion and erroneous
verbiage to the real effort to advance educational opportunity in the United States.”
According to Whiteside,
27 percent of Monmouth College students receive a federal Pell Grant, which is designated for
students with financial need. Five years ago, 26 percent of Monmouth students received Pell
Grants.
“We would see a
decrease in that percentage, rather than an increase, if college was becoming less affordable
for low-income students,” said Whiteside, who added that half of the approximately 1,100
students at Monmouth receive grants from Illinois’ Money Award Program.
Two students who
illustrate Monmouth’s willingness to work with low-income students, Whiteside said, are
seniors Pat Lynch and Chrissy Keever.
Keever, who lives with
her mother, said her family’s household income at the time she entered college was $22,000.
“Jayne took the whole
afternoon to go over our options with us and help us get as much aid as we could,” said Keever.
“She told us where to look for assistance, and she also told me about the work-study program.
The Monmouth Plan was also a major help.”
The Monmouth Plan, an
innovative financial assistance program, offers substantial grants guaranteed for four years
while accepting 100 percent of outside private scholarships.
Lynch, too, cited the
college’s ability to work with individual students.
“I can’t say enough
about how Monmouth helped out at such a personal level and treated me like a member of the
family,” said Lynch, whose mother and father passed away before he attended college. “Knowing
my financial situation and with over 1,000 other students to worry about, they took the time
to work with me and find a way I could afford to come to college.”
Students like Keever
and Lynch are far from the minority when it comes to the typical college student. Forty
percent of undergraduates at private colleges and universities come from families who earn
less that $40,000 per year.
“Despite the Lumina
Foundation’s mischaracterizations, American private higher education remains accessible and
affordable,” Warren concluded. “The concept of affordability which pervaded this report fails
to acknowledge the fact that major investments with substantial lifestyle and/or economic
benefits are rarely financed out of current income. More than ever, a college education is one
of the best investments that any student can make in his or her future.”
Released
by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330
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