As soaring college costs saddle more students with debt,
colleges are increasingly earmarking aid for students who can fall through the
cracks of existing programs: those who aren’t from poor families, can’t
necessarily maintain a 4.0 GPA or hit a three-pointer at the buzzer.
California started a scholarship program this school year to
help such middle-class students whose families earn as much as $150,000 a year.
Pennsylvania rolled out the Ready to Succeed Scholarship, offering as much as
$2,000 in aid for residents whose families earn up to $110,000, while Minnesota
added money to its state grant program last year to provide up to $5,000 to an
additional 2,200 students whose families earn between $60,000 and $120,000.
Scholarship money has long been targeted at the poor,
exceptionally bright or athletic. But when family earnings are a little too
high for funding through the federal Pell Grant program aimed at low-income
students, or students’ grade point averages and test scores are a little too
low for merit-based aid, middle-income families often turn to loans to make up
the difference.
Just under 20% of students whose families earned more than
$65,000 accumulated $30,000 or more in student loans by graduation, according
to a College Board analysis of federal data about the class of 2012, the most
recent figures available.
But not everyone thinks middle-class families need the aid,
which generally comes from state budgets and tuition revenue, because many such
students would still likely go to school without the extra cash. Program
administrators agree that the middle-class aid programs probably don’t boost
college enrollment, but they do help families minimize their debt loads and
could even be the difference in accepting admission at a particular
institution.
Nationally, published tuition and fees at private, nonprofit
colleges increased by 10% in the past five years and rose by 17% at public
schools, according to the College Board. Dangling extra cash can also help sway
those families that are beginning to question the value of a high-priced
undergraduate education.
Private universities with flush endowments started the
trend. Six years ago, Harvard University increased its grants for students
whose families earned between $65,000 and $150,000 and had assets to match such
earnings, saying costs wouldn’t top 10% of their income.
Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va., this year
began promising families who earn up to $75,000 that they wouldn’t be on the
hook for tuition expenses. Many states and public schools are joining the
movement.
California’s new Middle Class Scholarship Program covers up
to 40% of public-college tuition and fees for students whose families earn
below $150,000. The state expects to spend more than $90 million on about
73,000 students this year, according to early tallies.
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