Written By Patricia Rouzer
Earlier this year, President Obama spoke about his higher education reform program and the need for college degrees for our young people. He attempted to convince institutions of higher learning to slow the pervasive and steep increases in college costs.
While criticizing public and private American colleges and universities for continuing to raise tuition, he specifically praised the University of Maryland System which, through aggressively cutting administrative and energy costs and carefully deploying its faculty, is one of a handful of institutions that froze tuition for the coming academic year.
Observing that tuition at private colleges has more than doubled over the past few decades, and tuition at public schools has nearly tripled, Obama said that tuition prices have grown 10 times faster than the average family’s income.
As a result, many students and their parents have been priced out of the college market. Even those super-disciplined people who obeyed all the rules, saving and investing funds for college from their child’s first breath, saw a stock market shrivel those investments by half or more over the past year.
Many of today’s high school graduates who are fortunate enough to matriculate at area colleges and universities will emerge from secondary school with a hard-won diploma in one hand and a payment book for thousands of dollars in school loans in the other; this in a society plunged into recession thanks, in large part, to our penchant for a buy now, pay later (if you can) lifestyle.
To counter the negative economic forces that discourage young people from pursuing higher education President Obama proposed what he called the most sweeping reform in higher education finance since post-World War II’s GI Bill. His proposals include:
1) Investing $2.5 billion to identify initiatives and programs that successfully boost college enrollment and graduation rates.
2) Making the widely used Federal Family Education Loans a direct-loan program. Currently, banks act as middlemen between the federal government, which funds and guarantees the loan, and the student who receives it. The loans are guaranteed by the federal government, so the banks take no risks, and the banks receive fees for performing the paperwork. Obama has projected that cutting banks out of FFEL transactions will save billions of dollars annually.
3) Using savings from streamlining the FFEL program to provide loans to 8.5 million more college students and expand to low-income students the Pell grant program, which provides outright grants for college.
When or if any or all of these proposals will be carried out is anyone’s guess. The President has pledged to fight the lobbyists and nay-sayers to accomplish his agenda. It will doubtless be a while before we know if he succeeds.
At this time, aside from some additional Pell and FFEL money in the recently passed Economic Stimulus Bill, there is little immediate relief in sight for those enrolling in or returning to college this fall.
Despite the toxic economy and rising college costs, Carroll’s two colleges, Carroll Community College, a two-year public institution that grants associates’ degrees in a variety of discipline, and McDaniel College, a private four-year school that grants bachelor’s, master’s and professional studies, reported no significant downturn in applications for the academic year that will begin this fall.
Although the structures of two schools are, in many ways, polar opposites, both report strong applications levels and increased interest on the part of students in investigating available financial aid.
“Admission applications have remained strong,” said McDaniel’s Director of Financial Aid Patricia M. Williams. But, Williams cautioned that applications do not guarantee that a full complement of students will show up in the fall to pay their tuition and start their classes. “We’ve had a lot of students say a parent is either unemployed or may be laid off,” she said.
With a yearly tuition of $32,000, McDaniel could hardly be regarded as easy on the average family’s budget. However, Williams pointed out that 85 percent of McDaniel’s approximately 1,600 undergraduates receive some form of financial aid. Aid can be as little as $500 or, in the case of some scholarships, full tuition.
“We don’t have a set amount of money available for financial aid,” said Williams. “Instead we decrease the tuition charges for students. It is more a paper transaction.”
McDaniel, like Carroll Community College, offers academic scholarships and helps students investigate various financial aid options, including federal Pell grants and grants available through the State of Maryland.
But while McDaniel works with partner banks in the area, advising students on which area banks make FFEL student loans available, Carroll Community does not have a network of private bank partners and does not arrange student loans.
And Carroll’s tuition and fees are significantly lower than McDaniel’s. Tuition and fees for an instate student taking 15 credit hours a semester is approximately $2,580 each semester. Out-of-state tuition and fees for the same semester credit load are about $3,625; still a relative bargain.
Carroll Community’s primary student financial aid vehicle is the Pell grant. This year the college has a pool of $800,000 in Pell grant funds to distribute. In addition, there is a pool of approximately $150,000 from the Department of Education in supplemental grant funds and $30,000 to $40,000 in student employment funds.
Steve Wantz, Executive Director of Carroll Community College’s Foundation and Institutional Development, said the community college also has some 200 scholarships available to students pursuing a variety of majors. Like other institutions, Carroll Community’s endowment has been adversely impacted by the stock market’s fickle performance.
As is usually the case for educational institutions, the principle of CCC’s endowment cannot be used to fund scholarships or for other immediate funding needs; only the proceeds from investing the principle can be distributed.
But, said Wantz, through several signature fundraising events, as well as through other fundraising avenues, his office has been able to raise additional money to make up for the shortfall in endowment proceeds and assist students.
Judy Klinger, Supervisor of School Counseling for the Carroll County Public School System said that fully 25 percent of Carroll’s public school graduates attend Carroll Community College.
“It is a great way to get started on their college careers. It is reasonably priced and students can save money that they might spend at a four-year school on room and board, arrange their classes around their work schedule if they are working, and still get a good quality education,” she said. In addition, Carroll Community helps its students transfer to baccalaureate-granting institutions to further their studies, she said.
Klinger noted that there are a variety of scholarships available at McDaniel and Carroll Community, as well as at any institution in or out of state where a student may wish to apply.
The Carroll Community Foundation is home to a number of scholarships based on a variety of criteria and is also worth exploring by students looking for financial help, Klinger said. In addition, she recommended that students explore http://www.fastweb.com, a website that will provide them with information on colleges and scholarships all over the country.
“There are a lot of scholarships that people don’t know about and that go unclaimed every year. The website helps students find scholarship opportunities that they might not otherwise learn about,” she said.
The Maryland Higher Education Commission at http://mhec.state.md.us also provides a wealth of information about grants, scholarships and financial assistance as well as financial aid applications available through the state.
Although a conventional classroom is what most people think about when they consider college, there are a growing number of online options. So-called distance learning programs include web-based courses from accredited colleges and universities, among them many of Maryland’s public institutions, as well as specialized online schools such as the University of Phoenix, Walden University and Capella University, all of which are accredited by the Higher Education Commission, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Attending college via the internet is convenient, generally reasonably priced, and can dramatically cut collateral costs such as gas, food, social events and parking. Distance learning may be a good choice for students with previous college experience, but for a young student moving from high school to college, it is not ideal.
“Part of college life is what you experience outside the classroom: the different types of people you meet, the athletic and cultural events you can attend, the lectures and talks available that are unrelated to your course work. These are important for young people,” said Klinger.
Klinger can personally attest to the quality of some distance learning programs. Working for her master’s degree, she took a course from a well-known online university.
“It was one of the most rigorous, vigorous courses I’ve ever had,” she said, adding that there was a lecture and students were able to interact online in real time. “There were people in the class literally from all over the world” she said. “It was a very stimulating environment.
“Distance learning has been around at the graduate level for a long time,” she said, predicting that with the rising costs of education, it may become more widespread as an undergraduate option. “It seems to be the way we are evolving.”
Klinger recommended that students who are forced to forego college for work because they can’t afford to pay full fare, check into whether their employer will pay all or part of their college tuition. Some employers will pay a portion of tuition; others will pay the whole cost. Some predicate the percentage of tuition they pay on the student’s final grade.
As a last resort, some students elect to take a year off after high school graduation to “take a break” and make money for college. “That isn’t something I would recommend if you can avoid it,” Klinger said. “Things have a way of happening. During that year the student might take on a car loan or credit card debt or get an apartment and the next thing you know they can’t afford to go to school because they have all these bills to pay.
“It’s harder to get back into the studying and classes when you’ve been away a while. I’m not saying it can’t be done,” she said. “I’m just saying that for most people the longer you are away, the harder it is to go back.”
