How Financial Aid Awareness Affects College Access and Success
Paving the Way: How Financial Aid Awareness Affects College Access and Success
Literature Review
October 2008 In a time of ever-rising college costs, financial aid is critical to increase college access and success. Federal, state, and institutional aid programs help to ensure that students can afford higher education regardless of economic background. Financial aid is most effective when students and families learn about it early enough to make the right choices and plans about high school coursework, family savings, work and earnings, and college options. This literature review explores the questions of how and when students and families learn about college costs and financial aid, and how the timing and substance of that information may impact college-going behavior. The research for this review was conducted in 2007 by graduate intern Deland Chan, who wrote it with Deborah Frankle Cochrane. Shannon Gallegos and Edie Irons helped create the finished product.
1) What do students and parents know about the cost of college and financial aid?
a) Many parents and students lack adequate knowledge to accurately estimate college costs. i) Low-income and minority parents tend to overestimate the costs of attending college and are more likely to have inaccurate knowledge of actual college costs (Grodsky and Jones 2004; Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). ii) Generally, parents’ ability to estimate college costs accurately is positively correlated with income and negatively correlated with Latino and African-American ethnicities (Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). iii) High school students also overestimate college costs, and to a greater extent for two-year colleges than four-year colleges. Students typically estimate three times the mean tuition for two-year colleges and twice the tuition for four-year colleges (Long 2004; Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). iv) Students and parents with more information about college are much more likely to accurately predict college costs.
Literature Review
October 2008 In a time of ever-rising college costs, financial aid is critical to increase college access and success. Federal, state, and institutional aid programs help to ensure that students can afford higher education regardless of economic background. Financial aid is most effective when students and families learn about it early enough to make the right choices and plans about high school coursework, family savings, work and earnings, and college options. This literature review explores the questions of how and when students and families learn about college costs and financial aid, and how the timing and substance of that information may impact college-going behavior. The research for this review was conducted in 2007 by graduate intern Deland Chan, who wrote it with Deborah Frankle Cochrane. Shannon Gallegos and Edie Irons helped create the finished product.
1) What do students and parents know about the cost of college and financial aid?
a) Many parents and students lack adequate knowledge to accurately estimate college costs. i) Low-income and minority parents tend to overestimate the costs of attending college and are more likely to have inaccurate knowledge of actual college costs (Grodsky and Jones 2004; Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). ii) Generally, parents’ ability to estimate college costs accurately is positively correlated with income and negatively correlated with Latino and African-American ethnicities (Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). iii) High school students also overestimate college costs, and to a greater extent for two-year colleges than four-year colleges. Students typically estimate three times the mean tuition for two-year colleges and twice the tuition for four-year colleges (Long 2004; Horn, Chen, and Chapman 2003). iv) Students and parents with more information about college are much more likely to accurately predict college costs.