CURMUDGUCATION: Getting Low Income Students to College

CURMUDGUCATION: Getting Low Income Students to College:

Getting Low Income Students to College

The issue was raised again last summer in Hechinger's in a story that in turn called back to a book from 2014, so this is not a new issue. But as Benjamin L. Castleman and Lindsay C. Page noted inSummer Melt, we don't just have a problem getting low-income students to aspire to college or apply to college-- we have a problem getting them to show up once they're in.

Back in August, Meredith Kolodner wrote the piece "Why are low income students not showing up to college, even though they have been accepted?" but August is not the time to think about the problem because by August, it's too late.

Students are applying. Students are being accepted. And then, Castleman and Page report, 40% of the accepted students just don't show up at campus in the fall.

This is a problem.

Kolodner reports that financial issues are often a leading culprit. Financial issues can be more than simply not having the money. Navigating the FAFSA is hard. Figuring out the loan system is hard. For a first generation college student, college loans can add up to the biggest amount of money the family has borrowed ever, and that can be scary as hell.

Financial issues for poor families also include just about anything unexpected. An unanticipated medical bill is enough to trash a family's finances and make borrowing five figure amounts seem irresponsible.

And as often noted, many poor and first-time-college families just don't know how to navigate the bureaucratic highways and byways of attending college. Meeting deadlines, knowing what fees are necessary and which are optional, knowing what to expect-- these may all seem like second nature CURMUDGUCATION: Getting Low Income Students to College: