9/28/22 Inside Higher Education:
Federal student aid awards are technically awarded without regard to race, but researchers detail in a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper how the financial aid system actually reflects and adds to disparities in wealth among demographic groups.
They note that the formula for federal student aid doesn’t consider a family’s retirement savings and home equity in determining how much parents can afford to contribute to their child’s college education—a figure known as the Expected Family Contribution—advantaging upper-income white families, who tend to have larger retirement savings and home equity, over upper- and middle-income families of color.
Milton Friedman observed that if you ask college-educated middle class Americans to design a welfare system, the primary beneficiaries are the college-educated middle class Americans who administer that system. Is anyone surprised by this? Or that student financial aid has a similar problem. Of course, not only will poor blacks suffer from these disparities but also poor whites who are not even a designated victim group. (I speak from experience.)
Our national government's student financial aid programs largely benefit colleges and universities who raise tuition to clear the market of customers at whatever amount the government and families can spend. This is a rational economic decision for a greedy corporation as most universities are. Oh, but they are "woke," so exempt from criticism and shame.
"They note that the formula for federal student aid doesn’t consider a family’s retirement savings and home equity in determining how much parents can afford to contribute to their child’s college education—a figure known as the Expected Family Contribution—advantaging upper-income white families, who tend to have larger retirement savings and home equity, over upper- and middle-income families of color."
ReplyDeleteThat does not "advantage" them. They already had an advantage.