Financial Aid for College Students

“Financial Aid Eludes the Poorest Students” (July 11) identifies the tip of the iceberg. Discussions about access to higher education for all Californians must begin by admitting that the real cost of community college is more like $100 per class than $33. Below the surface of $11-per-unit tuition are the necessary books that routinely double or triple the cost of each class. Waiting for payday to purchase books, students routinely struggle through the first weeks of the semester without them and inevitably fall behind.

Understaffed financial aid offices are ill-equipped to save those most likely to drown. Forms rival the IRS, lines mimic the DMV and the atmosphere too often imitates the welfare office. The whole system has the urban poor sailing through college on the Titanic--with a twist. Millions of dollars in administrative costs are spent to determine if they are poor enough for a lifeboat. We would be better off with a simple system that would raise all ships. California high school graduates should receive a voucher that pays for fees and books for the first 60 units--two years--of community college as long as they maintain a C average.

CAROLYN WIDENER

Language Arts Chair

West Los Angeles College

* Your article missed an important reason why students have not received the financial aid information at community colleges. This information and application process start in the senior year of high school, when they can begin to apply for financial aid. The lack of support for positions in college counseling at the high school level is the real reason students don’t know what’s available to them until after they get to college.

Due to budget cuts, many school districts have done away with these positions. Where small numbers of counselors are still employed, the ratios of counselors to students (as high as 1:2,000-plus) make it next to impossible to handle the college counseling and dissemination of financial aid information. The lack of credentialed counselors in our high schools is shortsighted and has great ramifications for students not only in high school, but those who enter community and four-year colleges.

SUSAN DeRUYTER, President

Western Assn. for College

Admission Counseling, Ventura