<p>I am curious as to when Stafford loans & Pell grants began to be introduced.</p>
<p>I attended college for a short time in the 1970’s after my father died and while I received Social Security benefits, I paid tuition as well as room & board out of those benefits as nothing else seemed to be available.
I know that costs were much cheaper then & it was mainly personal circumstances that prevented me from continuing, although a grant or loan would have certainly been welcome.
Since some recent posts on the fin aid board seem to indicate that in times past, college was much more accessible, I’m wondering if that was actually the case.</p>
<p>I received Pell grants in 1985 and some sort of loan, no idea what kind though, or how much, but it did take a little while to pay it off.</p>
<p>I don’t know why I never applied for financial aid- when I was in high school college was never discussed- we didn’t have college nights and my counselor certainly never brought it up.</p>
<p>I hadn’t taken foreign language or the SATs so the only college I could attend was a community college- but even though the mother of one of my friends worked in the fin aid dept at the college ( she was never home), I didn’t think I would qualify apparently. ( our family always paid cash for everything, so loans didn’t even occur to me)</p>
<p>I find it interesting that some people apparently " have heard somewhere" that there is a lot of money out there for college. I never heard that & while we did eventually learn about financial aid & loans for our kids, I never had the impression that college was going to be cheap & that someone else besides ourselves was going to cover the expense.</p>
<p>Apparently in the mid-60’s but they were called by other names (BEOG and National Defense Student Loans):</p>
<p>[Pell</a> Grant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Grant]Pell”>Pell Grant - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>The Higher Ed Act of 1965 established the first of the federal grants for college (Educational Opportunity Grant - precursor to Pell Grant) and the Guaranteed Student Loan program. In 1972, the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, which later became Pell, was established - and with it came the first needs analysis formula. Federal matching grant money spurred state grants at this time. </p>
<p>I first worked in financial aid in 1987. At that time, Pell was available for the very poorest students, and SEOG was available with the intention of supplementing Pell for the neediest students. CWS was available. Stafford loans were limited to $2625 for undergrads. Students cheated the system by having their parents amend their prior years’ taxes in order to be considered independent (which is no longer allowed). College wasn’t cheap, and parents borrowed or kids worked first/concurrently if they needed money. I was out of the finaid business from 1989 until 2008, and when I returned the financial aid landscape was a whole new world.</p>
<p>i worked as a cashier through nursing school (1985-1987). once i was an rn i went for my bsn and the hospital paid. we were a lot more patient then and were not as into “the college life”.</p>
<p>i think we used to see college as a smart critical business decision as a means to an end and now the colleges see it that way. for the hs kids out there now, college has become an emotional decision and they want that name brand because they, “worked so hard.”
bleh - that’s life - you work hard.</p>
<p>save your money kids. save your effin money. avoid as much debt as you possibly can because college loans are NOT fun in any way, shape or form. once you kids start showing the colleges you figured out they’re ripping you off, they’ll start dropping their prices.</p>