<p>FA will never get fixed anytime soon because we are relying on two of the stodgiest, process-bound, and inefficient entities in this country to fix it: The Federal Government and Intitutions of Higher Education</p>
<p>The amount of inertia that must be overcome to make anything happen in either venue is almost impossible to overcome.</p>
<p>Nah, I think you are giving the feds too much credit. The real issue of finaid forms and documentation is gaming the system by applicants and their families. To use an extreme, for example, if colleges did not count the divorced parental income, 95% of all parents would divorce when their kid became a senior. All of a sudden, the custodial parent has zero income and voila, the kid is eligible for a full ride at numerous colleges.</p>
<p>What does “fix” mean? To insure that students can attend their choice of academically appropriate schools without regard to cost? Few private schools have sufficient endowments to support need-blind admission, and public schools have insufficient funding. </p>
<p>It’s easy to say that the system is broken, but what specifically can we do to fix it? What do you suggest? What are the specific problems you see?</p>
<p>vossron: </p>
<p>Fair question.
In my opinion: The main problem is that the COA at most schools over the past couple of decades has risen at a rate steeper than inflation, while family incomes and assets have over the past couple/few years declined in real terms rather than rise as they had been. Couple this with the fact that the FAFSA calculations are (like the tax code) in need of updating to accommodate what constitutes a “typical” income and a “typical” budget. I think things had been creeping toward imbalance slowly, but got pushed full-bore into imbalance with the recent economic downturn. </p>
<p>Anyway, that’s my take.</p>
<p>Also, if they “fixed” the system so that kids whose parents didn’t want to pay didn’t have to, there would no longer be any parents who wanted to pay.</p>
<p>No matter what system they use, there will be people complaining and finding ways around it.</p>
<p>I have heard some elected officials talk about making the forms simpler and that might happen. However, then I wonder, what information that they currently collect would get left off and what what effect.</p>
<p>bluebayou, I think maybe you are a little to cynical. If it weren’t for me and their mother being married, my stepkids would both easily have EFCs of zero. We got married 2 years before the first hit college. My wife’s income would have otherwise been zero. Not everyone is out to “game” the system.</p>
<p>“The main problem is that the COA at most schools over the past couple of decades has risen at a rate steeper than inflation”</p>
<p>This is mainly because education, like health care, is highly labor intensive, and its “manufacturing” can’t be sent overseas, like that of electronics and clothing which have become relatively cheaper over the years.</p>
<p>At least the average EFC hasn’t risen as fast as the average COA. At our D1’s school, COA has gone up 55% in 10 years, but the average FA package has gone up 93% in that time. Think of it this way: The wealthy (no FA) pay 55% more, the poor (full ride) pay 0% more, and the middle pay somewhere in the middle more.</p>
<p>vossron- Your statement about the middle class is incorrect, most of the time they pay as much as the wealthy, and very few of the ‘poor’ have full rides to school.</p>