Highlights
Remembering the Past, Imagining the Future
Andre Bell introduces the panel
From left: Andre Bell, Michael McPherson, Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, and Dallas Martin
A Panel Discussion with Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice president of Admission and Financial Aid at Harvey Mudd College; Dallas Martin, president of the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators; and Michael McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation; moderated by Andre Bell, vice president of College and University Enrollment Solutions at the College Board
On the evening of Saturday, October 30th, following a screening of a documentary on the history of the College Scholarship Service, "Breaking Down Barriers, Renewing our Commitment: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of CSS," the College Board's Andre Bell recognized the 50 men and women who had recently been inducted into the College Scholarship Service Hall of Fame. He then welcomed the audience to a plenary session about "the past, the present, and the future of student assistance and access to higher education."
Bell opened the discussion by asking Youlonda Copeland-Morgan if "we, as a nation, have ensured that all students who are prepared to go to college--and desire to do so--can?"
Copeland-Morgan began by recognizing the progress that has been made by U.S. institutions in opening the doors of educational opportunity. "That's something we can all be very proud of," she said, "but when I look at students and parents today, I think that that opportunity is being threatened. Our most talented low income students are going to college at the same rate as our least qualified high income students."
Copeland-Morgan also expressed concern that students were working harder to meet the costs of college and focusing less on their work, compounding the growing problem that many colleges and universities are having with retention.
Dr. Dallas Martin agreed. He noted that demographics indicated that there would soon be as much as a 15 percent increase in enrollment in higher education, and that the majority of those students are going to come from low income and single parent families. "They're going to come with greater financial need than ever before," he noted.
Martin described how federal financial aid funds are increasingly going to loans, and tax subsidies and deductions, which primarily benefit middle class and wealthy families. If the "No Child Left Behind" legislation is successful, Martin continued, and more students finish high school prepared for college, than institutions must be ready for them. "We're raising standards and we're raising hopes, and I wonder what we're going to have for these students when they graduate," he said.
Mike McPherson noted that CSS has always been a framework in which colleges, families, and the government came together to meet the needs of paying for college. "There was a sense of everybody working for a common cause," said McPherson. "And recently people have been backing away from that."
Copeland-Morgan agreed and said that CSS still had a role as a leader in advocating for the idea that "need-based aid underpins the financial aid system." Part of the 50th anniversary celebration, she added, was an outreach program designed to inform the wider educational community about the importance of need-based aid.
McPherson explained that one solution might be federal leadership that would bring the focus back to the needs of students who can't pay, and away from merit-based programs that tend to reward higher income students. "We have to work hard to spend our existing resources well," he said.
Copeland-Morgan agreed, noting that financial aid dollars should not go to the students who would be able to afford college without aid, but rather to those students who could not attend college without funding. Difficult choices would have to be made by institutions and by families.
"A lot of people say it's all about the money and the problem is money," said Copeland-Morgan. "But the problem is our collective will and our commitment. How committed are we to ensuring that these limited resources are really going to those students who need them the most? We can't escape that. We have to make the hard decisions."
She went on to call for a national campaign for financial aid awareness, so that students would know from a very early age that funds were available to help them pay for college.
McPherson pointed out that it was important that families prepare both academically and financially for college. Students need to make crucial decisions in the eighth or ninth grade about the classes they take in high school, and their parents need to prepare financially for college as well. "If you think you can pay, you're more likely to prepare," he said.
