College Promise: Difference between revisions

Most Promise Programs in the United States currently award scholarships on a “last"last dollar”dollar" approach, meaning that students who qualify for need-based grants will only receive their scholarships after federal and state grants are exhausted. Creating programs based on “last"last dollar”dollar" financial aid is cheaper to states and cities than the alternate “first"first dollar”dollar" scholarships. In “lastlast dollar”dollar programs, low-income students should be receiving less aid from Promise scholarships than middle-income and high-income students,. howeverHowever, this is not necessarily true. Lower-income students will receive their Promise Program scholarship as well as federal grants, but middle-class students may only receive the Promise Program scholarship. Many middle-class families make too much money for students to qualify for federal grants such as the Pell Grant, but they do not make enough to comfortably send their children to public universities even with financial aid.<ref name=":0" /> Often middle-class families are not able to afford college tuition prices and do not receive additional aid, and these students end up graduating college with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Shifting scholarship aid from “lastlast dollar”dollar to “firstfirst dollar”dollar can greatly benefit both low-income and middle-class students, but that would require the assistance of the federal government.<ref name=":0" />