In this 24-hour period I’ll be attending meetings of the Women’s College Coalition, NAICU, and the Annapolis Group, all held in conjunction with one another in DC. One of the discussions earlier today concerned the impact of federal financial aid policy on private colleges. This is a timely topic, as Congress is currently debating proposed changes to federal aid programs.
I realized I didn’t really know how federal aid currently benefits Sweet Briar students, so I checked.
In 2009-10, $565,800 came into the College to support recipients of Pell Grants (123 students), Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (71 students), and Work Study (65 students). $250,000 supported 117 recipients of Perkins Loans. Another $5,458,798 came from federal subsidized, unsubsidized, and PLUS loan programs. That’s a grand total of $6,574,598 in support for Sweet Briar students. (All these figures were supplied by NAICU.)
To put this in perspective, it would take something like $131,500,000 in endowed funds to replace this federal aid to our students (assuming a 5% spending rate.)
It can be easy to underestimate the impact of federal policy on private institutions. After all, because we have endowments and annual funds that enable us to support much of the financial aid we award from institutional resources, we can overlook the importance of federal and state aid programs to our students. But there are literally hundreds of students who rely on federal support to help finance their Sweet Briar educations every year.
If we, as a society, want to expand access to higher education and to make sure that all students can choose the colleges that are truly best for them, federal aid programs that allow students to choose public or private institutions, in their home states or elsewhere, are essential. Student-centered federal financial aid helps sustain a lively and diverse marketplace off institutions and increases student options. Sweet Briar, and Sweet Briar students, would be much worse off without these important expressions of our national commitment to higher education and educational choice.
