Aisha Ford was a sociology major. But she was forced to take on a second course of study that doesn't show up on her college transcript. In addition to being a full-time student, she had to become a skilled fundraiser.
Aisha, who graduated last month from Ohio Wesleyan University, did what most academically talented low-income students must do: cobble together grants and loans from a startling variety of sources to get through college.
Students from the richest quarter of American families are more than seven times as likely to graduate from college as are kids from the poorest quarter. Black and Latino students are one-half and one-third as likely, respectively, as their white counterparts to earn bachelor's degrees. Lack of financial aid contributes mightily to the problem.
We pride ourselves as a nation on the opportunity to climb the economic strata through education, but we've been offering less and less to poor kids with college aspirations. A 2006 Education Trust report notes that the maximum federal grant for low-income college students in 1975 covered 84% of a public university education; now, it covers a third.
And even as the cost of college continues to grow faster than financial aid, states and universities increasingly have shifted focus from helping the lowest-income students toward helping the middle class. So perhaps it should be no surprise to see the number of poor kids in college plummeting. In 1995, students whose families made less than $40,000 made up 38% of enrollment in public four-year colleges; by 2003, that number had dropped to 28%.
The federal government took a step in the right direction in May when the president signed a bill aimed at shoring up the student loan industry. The law ensured the continued availability of federal loans, increased the size of loans and lengthened the time families have to repay them. It is a welcome addition to the increase this year in the key federal grant for low-income college students: About 5.3 million students receive Pell grants, which are capped at $4,731 a year.
Aisha's story offers a clear view of the challenges that low-income students face. The first in her family to attend college, Aisha chose Ohio Wesleyan for the generosity of its scholarship offer, but she quickly learned that she still had a lot of fundraising to do. She took two work-study jobs, won two more scholarships, and her high school kicked in several thousand dollars. Now, as she looks at her college debt, she wonders about her ability to attend graduate school in social work.
