Student Aid Reform

Announcing the Get Schooled College Affordability Challenge Winner

Learn more about the College Affordability Challenge winner.
MTV, Get Schooled and the College Board Launch New Tool to Connect Students with Money for College

Learn more about this new Facebook application that links students with financial aid opportunities.
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Simplifying Student Aid: What It Would Mean for States

The College Board recently completed a five-state study to learn how further simplification of the FAFSA would affect student eligibility for state need-based grant programs.
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New Research Examines Parent and Student Experiences with the Federal Financial Aid Process

Learn the findings from the new report, Cracking the Student Aid Code, on parent and student attitudes, expectations and experiences navigating the financial aid process.
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Announcing the Get Schooled College Affordability Finalists

Learn more about the College Board and MTV sponsored Get Schooled College Affordability finalists and their projects.
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Fulfilling the Commitment: Video Overview

Watch the video on progress with Rethinking Student Aid.
College Board joins forces with MTV for the Get Schooled College Affordability Challenge

A national competition asking current and aspiring college students to re-imagine the financial aid process
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Simplifying State Aid Processes

Lumina Foundation for Education supports work to help states simplify the financial aid application process
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The Unfinished Student Aid Agenda

Policymakers and educators define the unfinished agenda for improving federal student aid.
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Why We're Helping

Financial barriers prevent many qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates from enrolling in four-year colleges. And for those who do enroll, their degree completion rates are low compared to their more affluent peers. We need a more effective financial aid system to increase college access and completion.

The Rethinking Student Aid study group of policy experts, academic researchers and higher education professionals spent two years studying and discussing the current system and ways to make it more effective for students. Fulfilling the Commitment: Recommendations for Reforming Federal Student Aid, issued in September 2008, offers a path toward simplicity, predictability and clear focus on students who need financial assistance to achieve college success.

Our Progress

What We've Accomplished:

Established the Rethinking Student Aid study group of policy experts, academic researchers and higher education professionals.

Released in September 2008, Fulfilling the Commitment is the culmination of two years of analysis, offering a set of comprehensive principles for reforming the federal student aid system.

Collected statements of support for the study group’s recommendations

A series of student aid policy roundtables on campuses across the nation to consider financial aid issues and the study group’s recommendations.

“The Future of Student Financial Aid,” held at the Brown Center on Education Policy Event at Brookings, Washington, DC

March 2010 policy forum in Washington, DC

What We're Working On:

Research with students and parents to examine their experiences with and perceptions about the federal financial aid system.

Working with states to help them model the impact of determining eligibility for state-funded, need-based grants using less financial data.

Statements of Support

“The College Board study group has provided a great service to the higher education community. Most of us have tried to improve the impossibly complex federal financial aid system by tinkering around the edges. Baum, McPherson and their colleagues, however, have taken the right approach — to rethink the entire approach to financial aid. The changes in American higher education no longer fit the paradigm of the 1960s that continues to drive policy and practice today. It’s time to move to a 21st-century system, and the study group has given us an exceptionally good first step to get us there.”

 —David Longanecker, President, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)

Read additional statements of support.

Recommendations

A summary of the Rethinking Student Aid study group’s recommendations:

Simplify the Federal Student Aid System
Improve the Federal Loan Process
Develop a Federal Savings Program for Low-Income Families
Reward States and Institutions That Support Student Success

Download Fulfilling the Commitment to read the full recommendations from the study group.

Study Group Members

Thomas Bailey Director, Institute on Education and the Economy and Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University	Sandy Baum Professor of Economics Emerita, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY	Steven E. Brooks Executive Director, North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority	Youlonda Copeland-Morgan Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at UCLA
Georgette DeVeres Associate Vice President/Admission and Financial Aid, Claremont McKenna College	Susan Dynarski Associate Professor of Education and Public Policy, University of Michigan	Ronald G. Ehrenberg Director, Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI)	Carl F. Kaestle Professor of Education, Brown University
Tom Kane Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education	Bridget Terry Long Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education	Shirley A. Ort Associate Provost and Director of Scholarships and Student Aid, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Marshall (Mike) Smith Education Program Director, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
William Troutt President, Rhodes College	Jane Wellman Executive Director, Delta Cost Project

Our Goal

To expand the educational opportunities available to young people and adults who face financial barriers to college enrollment and success, and to increase both the equity and the efficiency of the federal investment in higher education.

News & Events

State Simplification Report

Feb 28

My College Dollars Webinar

Facebook App to Connect Students with Money for College

Pell Grant Reform

Read the letter about Pell Grant reform

Get Schooled Challenge Winner

Jan 19

Report Release and Get Schooled Affordability Challenge Finalists

Join us and MTV at the release of the Cracking the Student Aid Code report and the announcement of the Get Schooled College Affordability Challenge finalists.

Announcing Get Schooled College Affordability Challenge Finalists

Learn more about the finalists and their ideas to reimagine the financial aid process

Cracking the Student Aid Code

Read the Report

The Unfinished Agenda for Improving Federal Student Aid

Rethinking Student Aid Policy Forum

Simplifying State Aid Processes

Helping states understand the potential effects of a streamlined federal financial aid system

Simplifying Student Aid: What It Would Mean for States

Download

My College Dollars Webinar

Download

Pell Grant Reform Letter

Download

Cracking the Student Aid Code: Parent and Student Perspectives on Paying for College

Download

More Publications

Press Releases

Rethinking Student Aid Report Creates Policy Path to Simplify Student Aid

College Board Brief Highlights Patterns in Student Debt

Collaborators

Lumina Foundation for Education

Spencer Foundation

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

“Improving performance in higher education is critical to our country’s future. We can’t do that work without a high-functioning system of federal student aid."

Jane Wellman

Executive Director, Delta Cost Project

Rethinking Student Aid

Contact Us

The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center
45 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023

Sandy Baum, Independent Policy Analyst for The College Board
Kathie Little, Senior Advisor, Student Aid Policy, The College Board
Anne Sturtevant, Director, Enrollment Services and Access, The College Board

Student Aid Reform

Why We're Helping

Our Progress

Statements of Support

Recommendations

Study Group Members

Related Initiatives

Our Goal

News & Events

Related Links

Publications

Press Releases

Collaborators

Contact Us