Ways to Finance a College Education

One of the biggest investments in families lifetime is higher education.  It is an expensive undertaking and requires considerable time, energy, an effort to be successful.  Higher education yields very high returns on this investment, despite the high price tag.  Among those students who continue their education after high school, students’ choice of which college or university to attend appears much more price sensitive (Baum, 2001).

Higher education scholars and analysts have come to realize that in spite of the importance of higher education as an investment for future opportunities, financial aid is only part of the solution to stimulate student choice in higher education (Paulsen, 2001).  Glaudieux and Swail (1999) explained this as follows:

Enrollment and success in higher education are clearly influenced  by many factors: Price and schooling and academic achievement, the rigor and pattern of courses taken in secondary school, family and cultural attitudes, motivation, and awareness of opportunities- not just  ability to pay,  which has been the primary emphasis of  [federal student aid] policy.  For lower-income students, removing financial barriers is critical, but so are many things starting much earlier, both in life and in the educational pipeline (p. 184).

Higher education opportunities unfold through life experiences, a process of developing aspirations and goals, pursuing those aspirations and goals through higher educational choices, and making changes in these educational choices to create new experiences, successes, and failures.  Aspiration usually takes place in the middle school years; whereas, high school aspirations have long-term effects on educational attainment and can be influenced by family and friends, and information provided by schools and educational agencies.  These aspirations are among the values and beliefs students use to make educational choices (St. Johns, 2001).

In addition, college choice is characterized as events of choices involving predisposition, search, and choice from among colleges to which a student is admitted.  The factors that promote this predisposition to attend college, institutional marketing and student financial aid, can influence the search and choice process for students.  Student learning and earning is improved by attending higher quality colleges and universities (St. John, 2001).

The role of a student selecting a  major is a choice influenced by family background, parent’s occupations and aspirations for their child or children, student aspirations and achievements, college experiences, and the college or university’s quality and characteristics, as well as labor market changes and expected earnings after graduation.  Persistence to the extent of aspirations and ability represents completion of the undergraduate educational major’s attainment.  It is influenced by student and family background, student aspirations and commitments, and student academic and social integration processes in the college or university of choice, and student and family affordability (St. Johns, 2001).

Accordingly, another factor students may not want to take at face value is a school’s admission is only measured by average SAT and ACT scores.  These test scores are measure averages; students with higher and lower scores than the national average are accepted in some of the best colleges and universities in the Nation.  Besides, schools increasingly are looking beyond standardized test scores when admitting students.  Many students with below-average test scores, for example, may get into a school on the basis of a brilliant essay or impressive resume of extracurricular activities.  Similarly, many students with above-average test scores could be turned away if he falls short in other areas (Max, 2002a).

In reference to job prospects of college graduate, Sarah Max stated in a CNN/Money report (2002) that:

We would be lying if we said that employers aren’t the least bit influenced by where a job candidate went to school.  Elite schools do give their students an advantage early in their career, primarily because these schools attract more on-campus recruiters than less prominent schools. Over the long run, however, on-the- job experience matters far more than the diploma hanging on your wall, but it helps.

The receipt of a financial aid offer makes a difference in a student’s choice of college or unive