The study, “Missed Opportunities: Students Who Do Not Apply for Financial Aid,” released by the American Council on Education last month, says that half of all undergraduates, or 8 million students, enrolled in 1999-2000 at institutions participating in federal student-aid programs did not complete the main federal aid application form. Many were well off, and correctly assumed they wouldn’t get aid. But the study found 1.7 million low- and moderate-income students also failed to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. Two-thirds of community college students did not apply for aid, compared to 42 percent at public four-year colleges and 13 percent at private colleges.

The study concludes that 850,000 of all students who did not apply would have been eligible for a Pell Grant, the principal federal grant for low-income students.
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The findings underscore a point often made by educators: Even as college costs rise, students often miss financial aid opportunities because they aren’t aware of how the system works.

“It’s frustrating when you know someone could be eligible and they just don’t do it for various reasons,” said Tammy Capps, financial aid director at Shawnee Community College in Ullin, Ill., where about 900 of the 2,500 students receive Pell Grants. She said the complexity of the form is often a reason students don’t apply.

“We’ll even help them fill it out,” she said. “But we have to talk to them face-to-face to give that information and that doesn’t always happen. They don’t think to call and ask.”

Few students with more than $40,000 in family income get Pell grants, said Jacqueline E. King, director of ACE’s Center for Policy Analysis. But they can get other federal aid like subsidized student loans. And FAFSA forms are often the first step in applying for other types of aid, such as support from states or from their schools.

The study acknowledges some poorer students might skip FAFSA forms because they line up adequate funding elsewhere. But Smith said many would have ended up with more aid if they had filled out the form.

“Everybody assumes the money is for someone else,” Smith said, adding that focus groups her organization has conducted reveal wide misconceptions about financial aid. “We talked to middle-class parents who said the money’s only available if you’re really poor, and poor parents said you had to have a perfect SAT score.”

The government has worked to simplify the FAFSA form, but it still runs four pages and several worksheets, and Smith said complexity is likely an issue in some cases.

U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman Susan Aspey said officials hadn’t had the chance to read the full report, but noted that the department launched a public relations campaign last year to increase awareness of federal financial aid. It also has reached out to minority groups under-represented on American campuses, she said.

Aspey said that about 9 million students will receive federal assistance this year in some form, and about 75 percent of all undergraduates whose parents’ incomes are less than $30,000 filed a FAFSA.

The study also indicates many students suffer by turning FAFSA forms in late. There is no deadline for federal aid like the Pell Grants, but many state and institutional sources require FAFSA submissions before April 1. The study found 55 percent of those who filed a FAFSA did so after that date–and the later the submission, the lower the percentage of applicants who received aid.

The project is funded by TERI, and NASFAA’s research commit tee will organize a series of focus groups of financial aid administrators that will provide the opportunity to discuss private/alternative loan issues on their campuses.

“Since the launch of our private loan programs over 17 years ago, there has been a dramatic increase in the need for private loan programs. We believe the research compiled by this study will help inform policy and help shape the direction these programs may take in the future,” says TERI President, Lawrence O’Toole.

“Alternative loans are one of the fastest growing areas in student aid, but the area we probably know the least about,” says Jamie Merisotis, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. “As we develop national policy, getting a better understanding of the alternative loan market will be critical to the development of federal loan policy and, more broadly, the development of institutional policy that affects access for students.”
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The Institute and NASFAA researchers hope to address several specific concerns of the higher education community, including:

* Who is taking out private loans? What types of borrowers opt to take out alternative loans instead of, or in addition to, federal student loans?

* Why are students borrowing private loans? Are private loans being used to cover “unmet” financial need, or to fund students’ “lifestyle” or “convenience” choices?

* What are the potential policy questions that emerge in light of increased alternative lending? Would the growth in private loans be affected by any increase in federal loan limits? What effects do private loans have on loan consolidation, tuition increases, packaging of financial aid, and total student loan debt burden for colleges and students?

To examine the alternative loan phenomenon more comprehensively, researchers will make use of existing data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the College Board and NASFAA’s Survey of Undergraduate Financial Aid Policies, Practices, and Procedures (SUFAPPP), and other sources. Researchers will also conduct a limited survey of select aid administrators to assess alternative loan volumes.

“Having reliable data on alternative loans will be critical to members of the higher education community as they begin to develop their reauthorization proposals,” says NASFAA President Dallas Martin.

The project is tentatively titled “Alternative Student Loans: Sleeping Giant of the Student Aid System?” and will culminate with the release of a report in the spring.

While a substantial body of research exists about financial aid for undergraduates, relatively little is understood about the strategies that administrators use to package aid for students in law, medicine and other graduate and professional programs. The SOGAPPP is intended to help bridge this knowledge gap.

This will be the second SOGAPPP study. The first was completed in 1999. This new study will provide an update on the policies and practices that administrators use to help graduate and professional students finance their educational programs.

Daniel R. Lau, president and CEO of Access Group Inc., says the new study “will provide solid information on current costs of attendance, current levels of aid and where it’s coming from, and an overview of the wide range of need analysis, packaging strategies and processing technologies now in use.”
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The 2003 SOGAPPP will use a Web-based survey to collect information on a variety of topics of interest to the community that serves graduate or professional students, including:

* Full- and part-time enrollments in graduate and professional programs;

* Proportion of students who receive financial aid and amounts received;

* Loan packaging policies and use of private or alternative loans;

* Proportion of total costs covered by financial aid and strategies used by students to cover their “unmet” financial need;

* The effects of cumulative student loan debt and debt burden on students’ career choices.

IT’S A PROUD day when your son or daughter is admitted to a prestigious private university, such as Princeton or Duke. Then (gulp!) you get to figure out how to pay for it. But even as total costs at such schools rocket past $35,000 a year, there is good news: Financial-aid policies are becoming more generous, even for middle- and upper-middle-income families.

Princeton won headlines earlier this spring when it announced that it would substitute outright grants for student loans in its financial-aid packages, saving a typical family about $4,000 a year. But that’s only the latest in a series of changes that Princeton has made to make more money available, especially to families in the $60,000-to-$120,000 income range. The university’s financial-aid formulas now completely ignore home equity when considering how much a family can afford to pay, plus the school doesn’t ask a family to contribute more when assets are held in a student’s name. (Normally, students must cough up 35% of any savings in their names each year, while parents contribute about 5% of their assets.)

The bottom line is that a student whose parents earn $100,000 and have $50,000 in nonretirement savings, $100,000 in home equity and $10,000 saved in the student’s name might receive $17,000 to $18,000 in grants (plus a campus job worth $2,250). That’s enough to offset more than half of the school’s $36,000 sticker price for 2001-02. And it’s $12,000 or $13,000 more in grants than the same family would have received under Princeton’s aid formulas five years ago, says financial-aid director Don Betterton. Even a family earning $150,000 a year might get a small grant (you can assess your own chances at www.princeton.edu/pr/aid/index.html).
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Most private colleges don’t have the wherewithal to match Princeton’s generosity. But many other top-tier schools are heading down the same road. Duke University, for instance, also taps student assets at the lower parental rate and generally caps the family’s expected contribution at 20% of household income. Yale exempts the first $150,000 in family assets from its aid calculations. Dartmouth, Duke, Stanford and others don’t count home equity that exceeds three times family income.

And most top private schools now allow students who win outside scholarships to use that money to replace loans rather than offsetting grants in the financial-aid package. Such policies generally benefit middle- and upper-middle-income families–those most likely to have accumulated significant savings in a child’s name or significant wealth in the family home.

Many schools have also made changes that benefit lower-income families. Princeton, for instance, reduced its summer-earnings requirement, and it covers student health insurance for families that earn less than $66,500.

Princeton’s latest moves will put even more pressure on other schools to ante up. Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have already announced that they will give students who qualify for aid an additional $2,000 in grants, to replace loans or work-study earnings.

More merit money, too. While the 30 or so top-tier schools that don’t award merit scholarships are enriching need-based aid, many other private schools are competing for the cream of the crop by pouring money into scholarships that are awarded without regard to financial need. Vanderbilt offers a $10,000 merit award to 250 students each year. “We’re not a leader in this; we’re just keeping up,” says Susan Barge, Vanderbilt’s associate dean of undergraduate admissions. Similarly, Oberlin increased its budget for merit scholarships by 33% last year, to $2.8 million. The upshot is that students who can get in to one of the elite no-scholarship schools can also win a substantial discount at some excellent alternatives.

“We have always had honors scholarships for the very, very top kids,” says Barge. The merit awards target “the group right under them–students who were vice-president of the student council, who made 1510 on their SATs, who were A-students.”

* THE EFC IS DEPENDENT ON THE INCOME AND ASSETS of parents and student and is determined by filing the free application for federal student aid (FAFSA) every year that a child will be in college.

* Generally, any income and assets parents have in excess of $100,000 will significantly reduce their eligibility for financial aid for children in college.

* The federal methodology is used by most institutions for awarding financial aid, but some private colleges and a select group of elite schools use other methodologies.

* CPAs CAN PROVIDE A VALUABLE SERVICE TO THEIR clients by assisting in the filing of the FAFSA form and planning to maximize financial aid awards.

With college costs increasing faster than the rate of inflation and the annual price tag at many private colleges now exceeding $40,000, financing a college education has become more daunting than ever. CPAs increasingly are being asked for advice on how to save for college and how to maximize financial aid awards. While it is tempting to recommend saving in a child’s name because of the lower tax rate or investing in prepaid tuition plans to gain immunity from tuition hikes, such actions can dramatically reduce financial aid awards. Estimating financial needs and devising tax-effective investment strategies are important (see “Other Considerations,” page 83), but relying exclusively on tax-favored investments for college can negate the fruits of hard work and planning if the result is a reduced financial aid award.

CPAs can play a key role in advising clients on investment and tax strategies to finance college education. In this article we’ll analyze the federal financial aid formula, explain the effects of different factors on financial aid awards and offer planning opportunities CPAs can consider for their clients.

THE FORMULA

Colleges awarding scholarships, grants, loans and work-study programs based on the student’s financial need use the following formula: Financial need = cost of attendance (COA) - expected family contribution (EFC).

COA is the total yearly cost including tuition and fees, on-campus room and board (or a housing and food allowance for off-campus students), books, supplies, transportation, loan fees and miscellaneous expenses, including an allowance for the rental or purchase of a personal computer. The EFC is dependent on the income and assets of parents and student. Exhibit 1, page 81, diagrams the components of the EFC.

The EFC is determined by filing the free application for federal student aid (FAFSA) every year that a child attends college. This is an additional service CPAs could provide their clients and is easily done at the time the client’s tax return is prepared. The FAFSA should be filed after January 1 of each year; it can be filed electronically at www.fafsa. ed.gov. Computation of the EFC is a process akin to filling out an income tax return. To maximize financial aid awards, CPAs need a sound understanding of the rules.

To illustrate how the financial aid formula works, let’s assume the following facts for the Jones family for 2004:

Family:    Size (2 parents, 2 children)                        4
Number of children attending college                1
State of residence                      Massachusetts
Parents:   Age of the older parent                            50
Earned income of parent 1                     $40,000
Earned income of parent 2                     $20,000
Adjusted gross income                         $63,000
Contributions to 401(k) plans                  $6,000
Assessable assets                             $50,000
Student:   Earned income                                  $4,000
Adjusted gross income                          $4,200
Assessable assets                              $5,000

The calculations of the EFC for the Jones family are presented in exhibit 2, page 82, and explained below.

PARENT CONTRIBUTION

Parent contribution depends on the adjusted available income (AAI), which is a combination of available income (AI) and contribution from assets. To arrive at the AI, the untaxed income and benefits (UIB) are added to the adjusted gross income (AGI) and certain taxes and allowances are subtracted from it. The UIB include employee contributions to tax-deferred retirement plans and deductible IRA and Keogh contributions, tax-exempt income, untaxed withdrawals of IRAs and Roth IRAs, pension distributions and other untaxed income, such as gain on the sale of a personal residence. In the case of the Jones, the parents’ contribution of $6,000 to their 401(k) plans will be added to their AGI of $63,000, resulting in total income of $69,000 (see exhibit 2).

The Student Loan Marketing Association, commonly known as Sallie Mae, is reaching out to assist families in this important phase of the college process with wiredscholar.com, Sallie Mac’s comprehensive online “going-to-college” Web site resource. The Web site offers an Online Award Analyzer to help evaluate financial aid award packages and provide resources for families looking for additional funds.

Typically, financial aid award letters provide students and their families with the amount and types of aid they are eligible for, the funding sources and conditions of the award. Nevertheless, the type and amount of federal aid awarded depends on many factors, including the cost of education, family information provided on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the availability of funds, according to Sallie Mae.

The Sallie Mae Web site, which was named “Best of the Web” four times in the college-planning category by Forbes magazine, hosts information, checklists, calculators and interactive tools that make up the Online Award Analyzer and a free scholarship search to help families make the best decisions when planning and paying for college.
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Sallie Mae is the nation’s leading provider of education funding, managing more than $78 billion in student loans for more than seven million borrowers. The company primarily provides federally guaranteed student loans originated under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), and offers comprehensive information and resources to guide students, parents and guidance professionals through the financial aid process.

Likewise, in today’s climate, colleges and universities can’t effectively compete without the Admissions and Financial Aid offices functioning as a team. Yet, there are often barriers to getting there, namely: old habits; different, unclear, or even conflicting goals and reward structures; and constrained resources.

Here are 10 principles for a healthy Admissions/Financial Aid partnership:

1. There are no second-class citizens. Mutual respect must exist between the offices. In this regard, reporting lines are less important than shared goals. As enrollment management consultants, we are often asked, “What’s the right organizational structure?” We don’t believe any one model is universally superior. Effective partnerships can work even when Admissions and Financial Aid report to two different senior officers. For example, if Financial Aid reports to the chief financial officer and Admissions reports to the chief academic officer, the trust and respect just has to be stronger and the communication more formal.
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In contrast, hard feelings often exist between Admissions and Financial Aid when the offices are brought together under an enrollment management model in form but not substance, where one office merely has operational oversight of the other. The key is the relationship between the leaders in each office and how they model behavior for their staffs and set expectations. If they respect each other and regularly get their staffs together to share goals and schedules, and to just get to know one another, any organizational structure can work.

2. Goal setting is a shared process.

Too often, Admissions views its goal as the number of new students (or the quality, or the diversity, or the equity of students), while Financial Aid sees its goal as simply staying within the budget. Why? Those offices are merely responding to the penalty-and-reward system that has been put in place. That is, if Admissions is only asked, “What are the numbers?”, and Financial Aid is only asked, “Did you stick to the budget?”, the attention is placed accordingly.

Admissions and Financial Aid should be held jointly accountable for the success or failure of reaching enrollment goals and, in particular, the common denominator of net tuition revenue. Beyond that, it is important for the goals to be well understood throughout the organization, not just among the leadership.

3. All grants and scholarships are green.

When Financial Aid staff members don’t know or appear to care about the value and criteria of merit programs and the Admissions office yields to Financial Aid on all questions regarding need-based aid because they don’t know how it works, it is very likely that net tuition revenue is not being maximized.

It’s fine if the Admissions staff is responsible for merit award decisions and the Financial Aid staff awards need-based funds, but collaboration and coordination are key. It’s also fine if the Financial Aid staff awards all institutional aid. But strategies need to be based on shared goals and grounded in data.

At the same time, awards given for different purposes (merit vs. need vs. performance) need recognition of how the whole package comes together. The family’s enrollment decision will be based on net costs after all grants and scholarships have been deducted. Having several funding centers (e.g., coaches, academic departments, Admissions, Financial Aid) without coordination or collective understanding of how these monies are coming together in an individual package almost guarantees bad things will happen. Too much aid will fail to attractive candidates who may already have a high probability of enrollment.

4. Admissions and Financial Aid data files must be merged for effective research.

An institution has no way of determining whether it’s awarding too much or too little money to students (that is, whether it’s being effective and efficient in influencing probability of enrollment) without merging the files of the Admissions and Financial Aid offices and analyzing the influence of quality, need, and other factors as well as the grant offered. Aggregating and segmenting data, and then putting data through regression analysis and modeling and simulations, is best.

5. Admissions needs to build its “case for affordability” using Financial Aid data.

When asked by students and parents about financial aid, too many Admissions recruiters at colleges and universities have basically two responses, neither of which is sufficient. First is to “run for the hills” and indicate that students and their families will have to communicate by phone, e-mail, or in person with the Financial Aid office. The second is to talk about process–deadlines, forms, etc.

Here’s how Wynter paid for her sophomore year:

Truman Academic Award                                $3,200
(Must maintain a 3.25 GPA)
Concord Church Cancer Support Ministry Scholarship     $500
Stafford Loan (Subsidized)                           $3,500
Family Contribution                                  $8,818
(Wynter works summers at Applebee’s to help pay
off her annual costs.)
Total:                                              $16,018

ARTISTIC TALENT PAINTS A PRETTY FINANCIAL PICTURE

Laudina Chioles always had a talent for drawing, but it took a class in graphic design at her high school in Spring, TX to show her that her art could lead to a rewarding career. After winning a medal from the Texas Art Education Association’s Visual Arts Scholastic Event, Laudina had the confidence to apply to the Art Institute. A rodeo-themed illustration won her $500 from Al’s applicant art show, and her impressive portfolio landed her a $5,000 scholarship ($1,250 each year). With awards in hand, Laudina packed her bags and headed north to the Illinois Institute of Art in Schaumburg. “Now I’m building my portfolio to get a job doing graphic design at a magazine or advertising agency,” she says.

Here’s how Laudina is paying for her freshman year:

Art Institute Scholarship/HS Senior Competition           $1,250
($5,000 total, $1,250 for each year)
Excellence Award (From the applicant art show)              $500
AI Merit Award (Must maintain a 2.5 GPA)                    $900
Klein Collins High School National Art Honors
Society School Scholarship                                $500
Stafford Loan (Subsidized)                                $2,547
Stafford Loan (Unsubsidized)                              $3,880
Family Contribution                                       $8,949
(Laudina meets the remainder of her costs with money
from her family and earnings from a part-time job in
the college financial aid office.)
Total:                                                   $18,526

SOCCER KICKS IN THE FUNDS

James Hernandez always assumed he would attend a local community college in his hometown of Providence, RI. Although his high school grades were good (A’s and B’s), his SAT scores were “really, really bad.” Friends encouraged Hernandez to look at Dean College, a Division I junior college in Franklin, MA. James, a star soccer player, liked what he saw at Dean–a school that would give him a chance despite his low test scores and a potential pipeline into a four-year college with a top soccer program. But the $30,000+ price tag stopped James in his tracks. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to come here,” he says. “But I met with the financial aid people, and they ended up doing a lot for me.”

Here’s how James paid for his freshman year:

Dean College Grant                                          $12,000
Dean College Athletic Scholarship                           $5,000
Rhode Island Children’s Crusade for Higher Education        $5,000
(In elementary school, “Crusaders” pledge to stay
in school, work hard, and avoid negative influences.
Those who do, like Hernandez, earn hefty scholarships.)
Rhode Island State Grant                                    $5,000
PLUS Loan                                                   $4,000
Pell Grant                                                  $1,500
Stafford Loan (Subsidized)                                  $1,300
Total:                                                      $33,800

A Love OF LAW ADDS TO A DIVERSE PACKAGE

When he was growing up in Easton. PA, Raymond Lahoud watched TV crime shows and followed murder trials on the news. “I guess I always had an interest in criminal justice,” says Raymond, who is now a junior at Lehigh in Bethlehem, PA. His passion for school also GPA hovering near 4.0. The only obstacle for this future lawyer was paying for college–he comes from a single-parent household with limited financial resources.

Fortunately, Raymond’s top-choice, Lehigh, was able to put together a varied award consisting of federal and state aid, plus a hefty college grant because of his h gh GPA and need. Raymond’s interest in being a lawyer helped him win two additional scholarships as well.

At issue are cuts to student loan programs that are likely to bring higher interest rates for parents or students borrowing funds for college (see Diverse, Jan. 26). These cutbacks make up about one-third of a $39 billion deficit reduction bill that many lawmakers thought they would finish in December.

While both the House of Representatives and the Senate narrowly approved the plan in December, a late parliamentary maneuver by Senate Democrats is forcing the House to vote again on the measure. The vote is tentatively scheduled for this month.

Student aid advocates have a “significant opportunity” to defeat the proposal, says Luke Swarthout, higher education associate for State Public Interest Research Groups. Many House members had little time last month to digest details of the $39 billion in budget reductions before a vote. The 774-page bill was released at 1 a.m. on one of the last days of the session, with a final vote scheduled just five hours later, at 6 a.m., Swarthout says.
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“That was done to hide this vote from the public,” he says.

The bill ultimately passed the House by a 212-to-206 margin, but barely cleared the Senate, as Vice President Dick Cheney returned from a Middle East trip to break a 50-50 tie.

More than 10,000 students have called or e-mailed Congress with their concerns about the plan since last fall, Swarthout says, and a diverse coalition of groups continued the effort into January.

If enacted, the bill will raise rates on most student loans to 6.8 percent, and rates on parent loans to 8.5 percent. However, the federal government will still pay lenders at lower market rates, with the federal government pocketing the difference. “Students and parents will be locked in to higher rates,” says Swarthout.

In recent weeks, critics of the plan have also taken encouragement from a new Government Accountability Office report that says the federal government could save money in the student loan program through other mechanisms. According to the report, the government could save $3.1 billion simply by eliminating subsidies to lenders and handling all loan consolidations through the federal government’s direct loan program.

Many students use consolidation loans to combine smaller past loans into one package at a fixed interest rate. Students currently can obtain these loans through the government’s direct loan program or through private lenders who participate in the Federal Family Education Loan Program, in which banks receive subsidies for participation and are guaranteed minimum yields based on interest rates.

“So far there has been no discussion of direct loan savings,” Swarthout says. “The entire debate is focused on how to raise additional money from students and parents.”

The debate breaks down largely along party lines on Capitol Hill, with Republicans supporting the package and Democrats in opposition. U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, says the bill will reduce loan fees for students and raise loan limits for borrowers. In addition, the bill includes a new student aid grant program for low-income, high-achieving students.

“This proposal offers significant new benefits to students pursuing a higher education,” Boehner says.

But the senior Democrat on the House panel, U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., says the program will make college less affordable. “This bill is the largest raid on student aid in history,” he says.

I almost never write about how hard it is to find the money to pay for these increasingly expensive schools.

Here is my excuse: I am not smart enough, or patient enough, to plow through all the rules and subparagraphs and worksheets and other necessary parts of the financial aid and loan-seeking process. I have the same problem with mortgage forms, credit card applications and tax returns. I have only avoided bankruptcy, or jail, by marrying a very clever woman who enjoys dealing with such financial arcana and, given my feeble arithmetic skills, doesn’t want me anywhere near the paperwork.

Nonetheless, I have stumbled upon a part of the financial aid process that seems rudimentary enough for me to understand, and important enough to take a closer look. I have just read an ill-tempered exchange of letters between two very knowledgeable men who, in the midst of their disagreement over how to help low-income students apply to college, illuminate this fact: the problem is not just providing enough financial assistance for college, but making sure the red tape to apply for the money doesn’t lead the poorest applicants to quit before they get started.
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My two informants are Bruce J. Poch, vice president and dean of admission at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and Steven Brooks, executive director of the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority in Research Triangle Park, N.C. During an Oct. 31 meeting of the College Board Forum in Chicago, Poch said some things that Brooks didn’t like. Brooks complained to Poch in a Nov. 2 letter. Poch wrote back in the same tone Nov. 12. Brooks replied on Dec. 7, and both agreed to let me quote from the letters and other comments they sent me.

Their disagreement dramatizes a very old but still unsolved issue. Americans have yet to figure out a way to assist people financially without asking them many personal questions, and the people who need the money the most are often the least experienced at dealing with these questions, and the most likely to become frustrated and give up.

The quarrel between Poch and Brooks began when the College Board meeting opened for new business. Poch said he thought the board should ask TV networks and print media to help launch public service advertising that would tell low-income parents and students that college is not nearly as expensive as they think it is. I recall a 1998 survey in which Americans on average thought in-state tuition at a four-year state university cost $9,694, when the actual price was $2,848. Poch said he wanted to do more to dispel such myths, which keep kids from even thinking about higher education.

Poch told me in an e-mail “I likely rubbed salt in the wound by stating that while traveling in the country, I read the many obituaries of those young soldiers killed in Iraq in local papers and there was an enormous frequency of comment that they had enlisted to get educational opportunity and GI Bill support. I felt we had built our military policy on the backs of kids who thought the military was the only way they could afford college.”

At the meeting, he said he had been talking to high school counselors who felt that the College Board’s College Scholarship Service (CSS) was making its PROFILE system, which helps students apply for financial aid, too complicated and too expensive. CSS officials had recently made the PROFILE forms available only online. Poch said he thought this would stymie applicants who did not have computers at home. He also said the rules for waiving the PROFILE fees for low-income students were too cumbersome, and CSS should extend the waivers, which save applicants $18 per college, to more than just the maximum three filings under the new CSS rules.

Poch said he thought the computer requirement for filing contradicted the College Board’s promise of equity and access for all students. He said he thought colleges and universities should consider paying all PROFILE fees themselves, rather than making the students pay.

Brooks, who is on the CSS council, said in his letter he thought Poch was spreading untrue rumors. He said CSS had worked hard to improve the system, making it both more accessible to low-income students and less likely to be misused by affluent students. Only 5 percent of PROFILE users had filed paper forms in the last year, he said, and the service had interviewed each one to make certain the new computerized system would work for them. He said Poch was wrong to suggest that the paper applicants were mostly kids who couldn’t afford a computer. Some said they filed paper “because their financial advisors suggested that approach,” Brooks said.