Colleges Even Cutting Back – on Financial Aid!

Well, when you hear about the credit crunch, which has been hounding the US economy just as badly as the predecessor to the great fall in financials such as the housing market going bust, and the massive foreclosures and job cuts and downsizing, you don’t generally about other, non private sectors of the economy cutting back as well which are actually going toward the development and improvement of our workforce – meaning our colleges and their students.

But guess what? The credit crisis has even hit colleges hard in their pocketbooks, and they are responding by cutting back once more generous financial aid. Yeah, that’s right, as if college weren’t hard enough to finance for the majority of students who had to finance much of their college education, schools are now being forced to also peel back on some of the financing in the form of student aid, which is very unfortunate.

Not only is it unfortunate because it cuts out some of the students that may have otherwise been able to go to college thanks to financial aid programs, but it may also make students resort to college student credit cards, which as we all know, can be a dangerous thing when you’re in college and always seem to be broke, when a credit card seems like your best option for keeping food on the table and a roof over your head.

Some schools are even dropping loans all together from their financial aid packages, making it even harder for would be students to enroll. This is because of all the financial turmoil in the market, and the government is not able to endow these schools as generously as they could before, forcing some schools to finance in house, and making it much more risky for them from a business stand point.

This is one of the last areas the government should think about scaling back on. This is scary to me. After all, college students are the answer for tomorrow, they are the adults of tomorrow that will be running things when we all get older, and here we are, limiting even further who can and cannot go to college. It just doesn’t seem like it’s a very “land of opportunity” mentality to me, and that’s what we’re supposed to be here in the US, is it not?