Falling Through the Cracks of Financial Aid for Middle Income Students
When conversations about college affordability come up, one large group that is unfortunately overlooked is middle-income families.
The challenge in education financing today is building on the success of need-based aid to create solutions that address the gaps for middle-income families without undermining the progress made for low-income students.
When Students Pay Less, Everyone Wins
With rising financial pressures on both students and institutions, concerns about the future of U.S. higher education are growing. It is no secret that with steadily increasing financial burdens for schools, tuition costs, for students, and education debt in our country, there are many negative impacts. There are many anecdotes ranging from student defaults, incomplete degrees, or people just unable to afford college. In order to shift the narrative, we at Scholar Basis wanted to highlight the other side of this problem: how alleviating financial pressures can lead to success stories for schools and students alike. This blog focuses specifically on income-based repayment programs and similar aid-expanding initiatives.
Income-Based Repayment Models: The Good, the Bad, and the Future
Between shrinking aid budgets and growing loan burdens, students today are often forced to make impossible tradeoffs. Income-based repayment models offer a middle path that adapts to a student’s future income. But while the idea sounds great in theory, past attempts have shown just how easy it is to get this model wrong. Taking all of this into account, we built Scholar Basis to harness what worked from income-based repayment models while avoiding what didn’t.