Financial Aid Packaging Policies: Access and Ideology

Understanding the College‐Choice Process

“…This degree of sophistication appears to be determined by socioeconomic factors (McDonough, 1997;Olson and Rosenfeld, 1984). In general, more affluent students, compared with their less-well-off peers, tend to rely on several sources of information (including private counselors to guide the process), are more knowledgeable of college costs, are more likely to broaden the search to include a wider geographical range, tend to consider higher-quality institutions, and have parents who planned and saved for college expenses (Flint, 1992(Flint, , 1993Hamrick and Hossler, 1996;Horn and Chen, 1998;Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper, 1999;Hossler, Schmit, and Bouse, 1991;Hossler and Vesper, 1993;Leslie, Johnson, and Carlson, 1977;McDonough, 1997;McDonough, Antonio, Walpole, and Perez, 1998;Miller, 1997;Olivas, 1985;Tierney, 1980). Saliency of Potential Institutions.…”

Overcoming the Tasks on the Path to College for America's Disadvantaged

“…Equally important is parental knowledge of curricular strategies and financial planning needed to meet the goal of securing a college education. Information on financial planning need not be detailed; providing parents with general, concise, and clear data on college costs and financial aid may suffice to motivate them to start saving for their children's postsecondary education and to learn about different financial aid packages (Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper, 1999;Olivas, 1985). A plausible source of this information is the postsecondary institution itself (Adelman, 1999).…”

State Need-Based Aid and Four-Year College Student Retention: A Statewide Study

“…Additional research has examined the effectiveness of particular types of aid packages in encouraging minorities to persist (Astin 1975;Nora 1990;Olivas 1985;St. John 1990b).…”

“…John 1990b). Olivas (1985) examined student aid packages for disadvantaged Hispanic students in an attempt to develop baseline data for this particular student population. His findings included the fact that the majority of disadvantaged Hispanic students who received aid had a financial aid package from a single source, typically Pell grants.…”

“…Ethnicity Studies have been performed that examine the effectiveness of particular types of student aid on the persistence rates of minority students (Astin 1975;Olivas 1985;Nora 1990;Nora and Horvath 1989;St. John 1990); it was therefore important to include this variable in the study to account for any effects that might have been caused by differences in ethnicity among the students in the data set.…”