Looking at my latest Student Air Report from FAFSA amused and frustrated me. My expected family contribution is low, relatively. But it is also ridiculously more than my parents can or will provide for this next school year. I am pretty sure that the government doesn’t really care that my parents are supported missionaries, but still, I wish somebody would.
Besides which, and don’t misunderstand me: I AM NOT RACIST, but something is up when I search for scholarships and financial aid programs and the majority of them are for really smart, really engaged people (honors students, or students who took all college prep courses in high school) or for minorities. Just so happens that the criteria for many of the applications I have seen are tailored toward Hispanics, blacks, Latinos, and whatever else I am not.
Take a look through for white, middle class, average students from low income families, and there isn’t much.
So why should a poor minority be more special? or the exceptional kids? I am all for helping the disadvantaged and rewarding the diligent, but what about those in the middle? I mean, somebody has to be, and should they get overlooked? Or is there something that I am missing (probably a great many things, actually)?
I don’t even know that I am all that terribly upset, it may just be that I am considering how much money I am going to have to give (that I consider well spent, no matter what) for my next semester of college education, and wish that somewhere, somehow, it was easier to afford. Especially considering that this is not the college world that my parents knew, and that the world world expects more and more that you can only get through college. (Try getting a good job without a degree, and its way more difficult than with one.)
Guess I am between the rock and the hard place, considering jumping into the frying pan from the fire, or, in a metaphor from my generation, surrounded by the Flood and the Covenant on this one (but without the advantage of being Master Chief).
So what gives?
This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 15:08:25 and is filed under Captain\'s Log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
