Middle-income students to receive financial aid

Friday, February 27, 1998

Friday, February 27, 1998

Middle-income students to receive financial aid

FINANCIAL AID: Only poor, rich can afford payments with current system

By Michael Weiner

Daily Bruin Contributor

Pop quiz: How do you finance a college education in an age of rising tuition? How do you pay for four or five years at an institution of higher learning if your family is already financially strapped?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to this question. And for many students, the act of financing a college education has truly become a test - of will power, that is.

But help is available. Need-based financial aid is a source of funds for about 26,000 UCLA undergraduate and graduate students. Aid can come in the form of grants, loans, and work study. And the aid system will change in the upcoming year, making aid more available to middle-income students.

Diana Lucero, a fourth-year psychology student, is one of those students. She received a 90 percent reduction on her registration fees because her father was permanently injured in the Vietnam War. She works at the UCLA Child Care Center to pay the rest of her school fees and her housing.

"The fee waivers really helped me out a lot," Lucero said.

In order to be considered for aid, students must file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The most common grants are the Federal Pell Grant, which covers from $400 to $3,000 per year, and the Cal Grant.

The financial-aid office decides if and how much aid a student receives by a certain formula.

Family income, assets of the family, age of parents, number of members in the family, and number of people in the family that go to college are used by the financial aid office to determine what is called the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) according to Nick Valdivia, a financial training and compliance officer in the financial aid office.

The EFC is then subtracted from the cost of education to arrive at financial need.

"What the financial aid office tries to do is take that financial eligibility number and translate that to grants, loans and work study," Valdivia said.

The financial aid process in the University of California (UC) system will be going through considerable changes in the coming year, however. More financial aid will be made available to middle-income families, and not just lower income families.

"We're hoping to award grants to many of the middle-income students in addition to our neediest students," Valdivia said.

But Valdivia said that how to do this has not yet been finalized, and the definition of middle income has not yet been determined.

Nonetheless, the financial aid office expects to give more to middle income families for the 1998-1999 school year.

"It's good because you have to either be really poor to go to college or really rich," said Victoria Bui, a fourth-year psychology and biochemistry student. "The middle people can't afford it."

Some students still see faults in the financial-aid system. Martha Rivera, a second-year English student, thinks that money should be awarded to students whose families have worked hard to achieve stronger financial stability.

"I think they should take personal background into consideration," Rivera said. "They don't look at how much (families) have struggled to get to the income they're at now."

In addition to need-based financial aid through the university, many students look for outside scholarships to help fund their educations. This is where UCLA's Scholarship Resource Center, located in Covel Commons, comes in.

Only in existence for two years, the center aids students in finding scholarships that are suitable for them.

The Scholarship Resource Center has three main purposes, said Angela Deaver Campbell, the director of the center. One is to centralize all of the scholarship information spread around the campus into one location.

Another goal is to make finding scholarship information cost-effective for students. Finally, the center aims to "make the scholarship process more supportive for students," according to Deaver Campbell.

The center offers workshops to help students find scholarships and fill out applications, a typewriter which students can use to work on applications, and writing support from graduate students to help students prepare personal statements and essays for scholarship applications.

The center's web site, at http://www.college.ucla.edu/up/src, aims to help students with scholarship searches. But Deaver Campbell said that a students' best chance at finding suitable scholarships comes from the center's library of scholarship books.

"It's probably the most comprehensive resource we have," Deaver Campbell said.

She emphasized that scholarships do more than just aid in financing education, but they are also a good resume builder.

"There's certainly work involved, but the nice thing about scholarships is that they demonstrate that you have proven yourself outstanding in an area," Deaver Campbell said.

Merit-based financial aid also helps many students.

Brian O'Camb, a first-year undeclared student, received an Alumni Scholarship to help him pay for his education. Because he also qualified for need-based financial aid, O'Camb also received an additional grant from the Alumni Association.

"A couple of months into school, they sent me a notice that they had awarded me an extra grant because I was financially suitable," O'Camb said.

There also many forms of financial aid available outside of the school system.

Although it is difficult, most students somehow find ways to pay for college.

"Many families are having difficulty saving the amount of dollars it takes to finance an education," said financial aid director Ronald Johnson. "Financial aid bridges that gap."