Category | Op Ed

So why are we filling out this FAFSA?

Published on March 13, 2007 by The Sentinel

    I hear the story time and again: there is so much
money to help pay for college, and it is so easy to get.  First
fill out the FAFSA, and do it early so that
they’ll reply with a list of available funds.


Then find scholarships
through the university and through other external sources, apply to
them and reap the benefits.   

    I’ve heard it said that thousands of dollars go to
waste every year because of students’ lack of initiative in filling out
these forms. But I find this very hard to believe. I have spent the
last two years of my life scanning through Web sites and scholarship
postings, filling out applications, writing essays until I sound
redundant and having teachers and advisors write lovely
recommendations. I usually feel confident that I stand a chance.

    I have received one offer.

    Call me skeptical, but every time I fill out another
application, my morale lowers a few notches. There are a few reasons,
each one making the supposed money seem more elusive than ever.

    Hurdle number one: qualifying. To qualify for the
Jane Doe Scholarship, you must be in your second year of college, have
a family member who is a war veteran, be pursuing a degree in political
science, have a birthday in the third month after the lunar new year
and favor the color green.

    This narrows the list of applicable awards to about
an eighth the size of the initial pool. External scholarships list
qualifications also, and generally require even more grunt work in
terms of recommendations and essays. This almost makes it not worth the
effort, because the applicant pool also expands.

    There is still some possibility at this point. All hope is not lost.

    Then comes the sting: applicant must exhibit need of
financial assistance. Even more “opportunities” are lost, according to
my FAFSA and my father’s income. Extenuating circumstances be damned,
my family is expected to fork over a ridiculously large sum of money
toward my education before it is even up for consideration, it seems.
The number still sits comfortably above any amount of money I might
care to spend in one semester.

    So if this elusive money is so readily at the
discretion of college students, who is spending it? Part of the answer
is the “minority” factor. It seems that scholarship boards favor
minorities. This means, hypothetically, that one minority student could
end up winning half a dozen scholarships and a white applicant to the
same ones could walk away empty-handed.

    Do people just assume that someone else will give
those students money? Sometimes it seems that this is the mindset, and
possibly the reason I feel so jilted upon the close of each scholarship
season.

    The students who have all those purported
opportunities tend to be trust fund babies or minorities. If a majority
of the scholarship money goes to minorities, then where does leave me?
All I have is two years’ worth of time invested in applying for the
money I was assured, but have yet to see.

    When it comes down to it, the only real assistance
available is that Federal Unsubsidized Stafford Loan. Signing on the
dotted line entitles the student to a lump sum that will collect
interest while he earns a degree. The student might receive a grant or
two, then again, he or she might be white and come from the suburbs. He
or she might have none of the traits of a “scholarship winner,” and
will therefore graduate and join the workforce to pay off the college
debt he was told could be avoided.