Aren't we supposed to be the "Harvard of the Southwest"? Maybe the number of our National Merit scholars is increasing, and maybe we have some nationally renowned programs, but when it comes to federal financial aid, we look like a bunch of suckers.
In the 2000-01 school year, ASU received $3.25 of aid per Perkins Loan applicant, while Harvard received $137.61 each. ASU received 10 cents for each dollar its students got in federal Pell grants, while Harvard received nearly a dollar.
But ASU isn't the only public school getting the shaft from Uncle Sam.
According to a Nov. 8 article in The New York Times, the nation's richest universities are receiving the greatest amount of financial aid. Penn State received $95.77 per work-study applicant, while the University of Pennsylvania received $582.
The Times article also juxtaposed California State University at Fresno and Stanford University. Many students at CSUF spend their breaks working in the local peach orchards so they can pay tuition. While the article doesn't mention how the Stanford students make it through school, it does mention that the school receives up to 100 times as much money.
Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
In a time when many students at our own university have been forced to cut back or put off school due to a $500 increase in tuition, this news of financial aid inequity at the federal level is a slap in the face.
It is illogical and unjust that some of America's most deep-pocketed private schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Brown are receiving an alarmingly greater amount of federal aid than the nation's more modestly endowed state schools. The very fact that they are private schools indicates that they should have less dependence on government funds. On a more pragmatic level, such private institutions have considerably cushier endowments to pad the aid packages for their needier students.
There seems to be a parallel here to Bush's tax cuts: While millions in our nation are going hungry and students struggle to pay tuition and fees at state and community colleges on shoestring budgets, let's give a break to the rich people so they can get new paint jobs on their luxury SUVs.
But Bush's fiscal strategies can be left out of this little dilemma, since the disparity in federal college funds started way before Bush 41. In the 1970s, panels of "regional experts" made the cash flow decisions. With a little wheeling and dealing from the last generation of university leaders, financial aid distribution came down in favor of the more politically savvy, richer administrators and their schools.
It is about time that the federal government let go of this outdated system and put in place substantial reforms to increase equity and affordability of education among all U.S. college students. The educational elite should no longer hold the exclusive rights to the lion's share of federal financial aid at the expense of more equitable distribution.
