Written by Dr. Melik Peter Khoury
Federal financial aid (Title IV) once covered three quarters of the cost of a public four year degree. It now covers twenty seven percent, and the difference landed on the kitchen table.
In When The Blank Check Expires I made an argument about the mechanism. Federal student aid was written for a country that no longer exists, and the instrument has run well past its design life. I stand by every line of it.
I left something out. Not by accident. It needed its own piece.
Financial aid was never built to carry a safety net. It has been carrying one anyway, for about twenty years, without a vote, without a budget line, and without most in Washington saying so out loud.
Somewhere tonight a learner is deciding between a textbook and groceries, and there is a federal form that has already determined they are doing fine. The form is not broken. It is answering the question it was asked.
We built a system that requires the poorest people in this country to finance their own escape, then tells them they earn too much to be helped while they do it. The sector knows. We have known for twenty years. We have a word for it. We call it access.
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