New Options For Financial Aid Help Students Complete Their Degree
It could be that student loans were merely a start. Since the Barack Obama Administration\’s student loan overhaul last year, Tony Miller has suggested an overhaul of financial aid in its entirety. Miller, who is Deputy Secretary for the US Department of Education, wants financial aid to help students obtain degrees, rather than simply provide them access to college and university studies.
Degree completion has been a focus ever since the Obama Administration challenged Americans to help the United States reclaim its top worldwide ranking in the number of college and university degree holders. The difference in academic achievement between Americans and residents of other countries could have cost the American economy more than $2 trillion in output in 2008, according to research from McKinsey & Company, which also cited hundreds of billions in economic losses as a result of achievement gaps having to do with ethnicity, income levels and school systems. Getting more information about graduate school scholarships can be to your benefit.
Where two in five Americans currently obtains a college or university, degree, Miller said three in five needs to do so in order to reach the Obama Administration\’s goal by 2020. Miller was speaking in November at a Federal Student Aid conference when he suggested that there are ways other than adding money to financial aid that can help strengthen it. According to a McKinsey & Company report, Miller said, colleges and universities can help the Obama Administration achieve its goals if they increase their average degree productivity and measure that productivity by the cost per degree.
State governments, colleges and universities and education groups are doing their part. A university in Colorado is offering scholarships to former students who never completed their bachelor\’s degree programs. The program is known as a \”CU Complete,\” and students can receive up to $1,000 in scholarships, with amounts depending upon the academic credits they need to take. The Daily Camera newspaper recently reported that more than 375 students have been contacted over the past 1.5 years as part of \”CU Complete,\” and that the university has awarded some $23,000 in scholarships to 23 who enrolled.
Adults in states such as Kentucky and Michigan are either provided financial aid to help them finish community college studies of two years or information about financial aid, according to information from the non-profit College Board. Students with associate\’s degrees from two year colleges in Virginia, the College Board also reports, can receive $1,000 to attend four-year institutions and train for in-demand careers, while a Promise Scholarship program for low-income students in Oklahoma requires that students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average in high school studies that are considered demanding.
A group known as Excelencia in Education is focusing specifically on increasing the number of degree-holding Latinos. According to this group, Latinos – nearly 49 million of them – are the country\’s largest ethnic or racial minority. By 2025, Excelencia in Education notes, nearly 25 percent of the population that\’s college or university aged is expected to be Latino. If you are looking for more information about college scholarships online check the web.
Miller suggested that financial aid administrators consider that their job responsibilities involve more than providing students entry to colleges and universities – that they involve helping students succeed. He provided examples of scholarships that, through their stipulations, affect graduation rates. HOPE scholarship programs that provide full in-state public college and university tuition to Arkansas and Georgia residents with minimum 3.0 grade point averages increased continued studies toward a bachelor\’s degree by as much as 10 percent, he noted. West Virginia, in creating its Promise scholarship program, made it so that students have to take enough per semester courses so that they graduate on time, Miller noted.
All of these efforts might come together to help increase the number of students who obtain their degrees through traditional or online courses. Look for more information through Education Connection to answer your education questions.
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