Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream

“Even after grants and scholarships are accounted for, the price of college grew substantially over the past several decades, in part because the purchasing power of need-based financial aid declined (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Such findings support a larger body of work linking economic hardship to struggles with academic success (e.g., working multiple jobs compromises time needed for scholastic achievement; Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Bozick, 2007; Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Paulsen & St. John, 2002).”

“and board) have increased in recent decades, while inflationadjusted income levels for US families have remained mostly flat for all but the population’s top quintile.(5,6) The price of one year of college is the equivalent of 84% of the income for the lowest 25% of US families.”

“At the same time, some students living without family may be less vulnerable to food insecurity since they only need to care for themselves (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“This price has gone up substantially over time, particularly since the Great Recession, and it is often impossible to cover entirely with federal loans (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“For example, the amount of funding available through the federal Pell Grant program has increased only in small increments.”

“…scope of conflict and hold the promise of accommodating the needs of the disadvantaged while at the same time avoiding stigmatization, drift, and disinvestment due to limited political feasibility (Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Hacker, 2004; Mettler & Stonecash, 2008; Schattschneider, 1960; Skocpol, 1995).”

“Even in the relatively more affordable two-year college sector, the total price of college attendance represents a significant financial burden for many students from low- and moderate-income families and additional support is necessary (College Board, 2017; Monaghan & Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“These meetings could also address barriers such as food or residential instability that students may experience (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“The rising cost of tuition and housing frame the increasing number of students without residential stability (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Data for this research study were obtained independently from the program, so as to avoid any interaction effects that could compromise the research or program (for more details, see Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2016).”

“College education is increasingly expensive (Goldrick-Rab, 2016) and this trend negatively affects the well-being of students.”

“Overall, the predictors of food insecurity among college students appear to be fairly similar to those found in the general population(17,28); however, students may be at a heightened vulnerability to food and housing insecurity due to the rising costs of tuition and living expenses in these areas as well as gaps in t…”

“However, there is some suggestive evidence that low-income students, specifically those receiving Pell grants, spend more time studying than the average student (Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Pell Institute, 2015); While Babcock and Marks (2011) speculate that the declining amount of time spent studying has resulted in less lea…”

“Sara Goldrick-Rab (2016) argues that rising costs of tuition and housing coupled with limited financial aid and social assistance programs create significant stress on college students and their families.”

“The literature on higher education has long highlighted financial barriers (for example, Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Kane, 1995) and more recently 384 Acta Sociologica 64(4) information biases (Abbiati and Barone, 2017; Usher, 2005) as drivers of social inequalities in higher education and it is possible…”

“When students do not have sufficient resources with which to cover their living costs, they are more likely to take on additional work hours or make compromises that affect their schoolwork—such as forgoing books and other supplies or skipping meals (Broton et al., 2014; Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“A number of recent studies (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013; Mettler 2014; Goldrick-Rab 2016) show how the effective privatisation of US higher education – through the declining effectiveness of student aid, reducing State financial commitment to higher education (meaning that the burden of the costs…”

“For the 2008 cohort, we previously reported no program impacts on persistence to the second year of college, transfer rates, or degree completion rates (Goldrick-Rab, 2016)”

“…suggest that social, political, and economic developments over the past several decades, in particular declining public subsidies, have had a deeply detrimental effect on higher education’s ability to serve the public good in the present (e.g. Giroux, 2011; Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Newfield, 2016).”

“…food insecurity; well-being; sleep; GPA It has long been assumed that students enrolled in college are somewhat elite, economically privileged individuals unlikely to face challenges associated with poverty, such as hunger, housing instability, and homelessness (see Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Disparities in economic capital can affect college completion as students from low-income families may struggle to afford college tuition and associated costs (Cabrera et al. , 1990; Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Studies have considered whether aversion to debt provides a barrier to student participation in higher education (e.g. Callender & Mason 2017), as well as how student debt affects the life-course of graduates after study (Goldrick-Rab 2016).”

“Today, far more low-income students enroll in higher education and face increased pressures to work or to take on high levels of debt while they are in college (Goldrick-Rab 2016).”

“Education scholars have written of these shifts to trace how higher education affordability transitioned from being a public good to a private one (Fossey & Bateman, 1998; Fuller, 2014; Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Because pay from work is generally not enough to cover all expenses, first-generation students often rely heavily on financial aid and credit card debt to make it through college (Goldrick-Rab 2016; Goldrick-Rab, Richardson, and Hernandez 2017).”

“This growth was especially stark among Black and Hispanic households (Goldrick-Rab 2016; Houle and Addo 2019; Jackson and Reynolds 2013; Seamster and Charron-Chénier 2017).”

“Further, Goldrick-Rab (2016) described how students from poor and minoritized backgrounds often face competing demands on their time, including providing financially for their families, caretaking responsibilities, transportation issues, and food and housing insecurity.”

“…research indicates that the ability of a student or their family to help pay for educational costs improves the prospect of a student persisting in their higher education studies (Olbrecht, Romano, & Teigen, 2016), especially for low-income and first-generation students (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“past several decades, while household incomes have remained largely stagnant.(5) For most, attending college or”

“Public universities and community colleges struggled to meet the rising demand from historically excluded groups (Goldrick-Rab 2016).”

“These pressures stem from several interrelated trends that have shifted a significant portion of the costs of higher education from state and federal government to individual students and their families (Goldrick-Rab 2016).”

“Food insecurity is present and increasingly visible on university and college campuses (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Due to the rising price of college, the majority of community college students turn to the financial aid system—perhaps the most ubiquitous, costly, and influential policy and set of practices in American higher education (Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Goldrick-Rab, Harris, & Trostel, 2009).”

“Financial need and associated stressors are dominant sources that students cite as influencing engagement, performance, and persistence (Breier, 2010; Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Robb et al., 2012).”

“While part-time and on-campus work is often associated with better outcomes, work off-campus and in excess of 30 hours per week appears to hinder completion (Darolia, 2014; Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“Parents of socioeconomically disadvantaged students are often compared to their more affluent counterparts and portrayed in the literature as not being able or willing to help (see a critique in Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“This assumption, however, ignores the fact that the promise of higher education today is increasingly not translated into decently paying jobs (Aspen Institute, 2015), and that many low-income students drop out of school, often because they could not afford to keep studying (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“2 Qualitative studies highlight the stark differences in the college experiences of students from different class origins(e.g. Armstrong and Hamilton 2015; Goldrick-Rab 2016; Hurst 2019; Richards 2020).”

“family income, while the gap between costs and financial aid continues to grow.(4) In 2019, 41% of university students”

“The myriad pitfalls along the pathway to a bachelor’s degree are well documented (Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Tinto, 2006), and they significantly reduce individuals’ odds of college graduation.”

“Against their better judgment, many students are taking out loans for college not because they are certain of the economic payoff, but because they are sure that their life chances, and those of their families, will suffer if they do not (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“It is for these reasons that the K–12 National School Lunch Program began (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“The cost of college attendance, which goes beyond tuition and housing, and includes foregone income, may be too expensive for this group (Goldrick-Rab 2016).”

“These financial aid officers’ opinions directly contradict the expressed goals and intentions of the federal financial aid system (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).”

“…that Does Free Community College Improve Student Outcomes? students receiving needbased aid such as the Federal Pell Grant receive less support, despite the mounting evidence on the importance of cov ering living, transportation, and food expenses for community college students (GoldrickRab, 2016).”

“These issues have coincided with limited growth in family income and stagnant student grant aid (Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Leicht & Fitzgerald, 2006).”