7 Financially Arming Future Society’s Adults

About the Author

Abbagale Call is a hard-working freshman at Utah State University. She is the second oldest of six girls and loves her family more than anything. Abbie loves music and plays multiple instruments, including the flute, piano, organ, and guitar. Abbie is currently working part–time and going to school full-time. She wants to major in English and study research and fictional writing.

This essay was composed in December 2021 and uses APA documentation.

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“WACKY SIX!!” MY MOM YELLS from across the table. A collective sigh released a mix of relief and disappointment as the rest of my family collapsed back into their chairs. My sisters swoop in to gather up the cards like vultures, eager to see who discarded the most from their hand. I run back to the computer as I did after every round to religiously check if the Regents Scholarship has received my FAFSA yet. The looming deadline had arrived, but I had submitted it over a month ago. Paying for college had always been a momentous concern of mine because I understood that no help would come from the FAFSA in the form of grants. Although my dad has a well-paying job, with eight mouths to feed, paying for my college loomed out of my parents’ price range. The overwhelming stress of a 17-year-old constantly on edge waiting to hear back from scholarships grated on both my and my parents’ nerves. The blue screen of the computer lit up as I wiggled the mouse back and forth across the black granite. The web browser was already pulled up to the Regents account portal. I had one new message in my portal inbox, and I slowly sank down into the plastic chair to read it:

Dear Abbagale,
It appears as if you have submitted the wrong year of the FAFSA, and we were unable to process it. Due to this, your scholarship may or may not be revoked; please submit the correct FAFSA as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey.

Shock. Anger. Frustration. Stress. Hopelessness. All of these feelings had been bubbling up inside me for weeks and now took this moment to explode out. Experiences such as mine are far too common. All across the country college students struggle to pay for their education due to tremendous costs. To help college students all over the U.S., the FAFSA program must lower the independence age from 24 to 18.

To start off, we must understand the FAFSA program and the difference between independent and dependent students. FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. While applying for FAFSA, each student answers a series of questions and submits required tax documents to determine the amount of financial help each applicant will receive. The independent and dependent status comes into play during this stage. To be independent, many factors and questions must be considered. However, the requirement we will be focusing on for the duration of this paper relates to age. Currently, the age a student can file for independent status begins at 24. When the applicant qualifies as an independent, the FAFSA application looks at the student’s income to determine the amount of help they qualify for. On the other hand, filing as dependent means that financial questions and financial information for the FAFSA will be the college student’s parents, not their own (“For the purpose of applying”, 2021).

By requiring students be 24 years old to give them independent status, the FAFSA program forces these students to work prolonged hours. Laura W. Pernda, the executive director of the program AHEAD (Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy), a program made to help students pursue an education no matter the barriers they may face, points out that,

In the United States today, … 70 percent to 80 percent of college students are both active in the labor market and formally enrolled in some form of postsecondary education or training. (Perna 2020)

The vast majority of college students must hold down jobs. Students not only need to pay for college, but they also have food, clothes, sanitation products, and school supplies to buy. All these things add up, making one giant problem. Lowering the age of independence could help this problem. If the age of independence changes on FAFSA from 24 to 18, students will be allowed to put their income on the form, instead of their parent’s. This change could lead to more grants that go toward the students’ education, which in turn provides a decrease in the time college students must spend at work. In a study done in 2020 concerning the number of full-time students holding down a job, scientists found a full-time student from the ages 20-34 worked 21.4 hours a week (Digest of Education Statistics). On average, these working hours add up to three hours a day that students work, when these same students might have the opportunity to study, decompress, or experience college life. In economics, the name used to describe such a thing is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is defined as “the money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course of action instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative” (Opportunity Cost). In this specific case, students give up the opportunity to go to activities to pay for college. Many students experience this unjust isolation.

As I interviewed college students at Utah State University, many of the students who work related to this scenario. After getting off a long day at work, these students trudge to their dorm to get in some final studying before the test the next day. As they ride up the elevator, they stand surrounded by people talking about a school-sponsored event. After enduring the painful reminder, these overworked students go back to their dorms and think, “Maybe next time.”

Although some skeptics may object that obtaining a job in the early years will help children become adults, I would answer that the majority of young adults get a job for more than just paying for college. A study done by Georgetown University found that 67% of students 16 to 24 already had jobs (Carnevale). In the vast majority of cases, young adults start going to college when they turn 18. More than half of students already have a job two years before college indicates that these 16-year-olds need money for more than just paying for college. Such things can include gas, food, books, and the basics of life, along with any wants the child or young adult desires. As a rite of passage, getting a job helps children become adults. However, students and young adults alike get jobs before college expenses become a reality. When put to good use, this hard-earned money helps students pay for other necessities, ones not covered under college tuition.

In addition, another way that FAFSA might adapt is by sending a check directly to the university in question. Any student trying to take advantage of the system will quickly see that this money will only go towards education. By making this money go towards college tuition, books, or housing, it allows FAFSA not to be taken advantage of. By sending a check directly to the school and allowing the money to only be used to pay for college, the “Free Application for Student Financial Aid” (italics added) truly does what its name implies, helping the students get the education they need through financial aid.

In addition, one of the many reasons the age of filing for independence must lower involves all of the hours students spend at work, minimizing studying time. This reduced study time can lead to grades dropping. Perna states, “[I]n 2017, 43 percent of all full-time undergraduate students and 81 percent of part-time students were employed while enrolled” (Perna 2020). The large number of students working shows the number of hours lost both individually and collectively. Students going to school full-time take more classes, costing them more money. However, these same students, because of the many classes being taken, have less time to work and save money. This leads to a dreadful circle: the more time students work, the less time they have to study, and the less time these students have to study the worse their grades get. Such an imbalance causes grades to drop and has a correlation with lower grades in universities across America (Carnevale). As students’ grades plummet, so do grade-related scholarships. Now, some might say that the amount of days that a student works doesn’t matter as long as they set aside time to study. Although this statement has some truth and having a job does not mean that automatically a student’s grades plummet, according to the National Center for Education Statistics,

Among college students working to pay for school expenses, 16 percent of those working 1 to 15 hours per week reported that working had a negative impact on their grades. Thirty percent of college students who worked 16 to 20 hours a week said the same, as did 48 percent who worked 35 hours or more per week. (Digest of Educational Statistics)

According to this study, the more that students work, the more their grades suffer. More than half of students working part-time reported their grades dropping. Grades become essential in college to earn academic scholarships and to get into different educational programs. The majority of colleges require students to have at least a 3.0 GPA to get into a master’s program (Franklin University). Overload and lack of study time can cause students to have an ever-dropping GPA. If this declining GPA drops off before students turn 24, they will still qualify as a dependent on FAFSA. This greatly affects the amount of scholarship money students can obtain, and it will affect both personal educational careers and future career opportunities.

On the other hand, people argue that having a job is beneficial for students and it helps build character, responsibility, and integrity. In a newspaper article titled “Pave your Own Way! (Then Thank Mom),” Audrey Rock- Richardson, a college student who went to college full-time and paid for it on her own, explains, “Having to juggle tasks forces you to prioritize, a skill she ( A fellow full time college student without a job) hadn’t learned.” (Rock-Richardson, 2000). While the statement that jobs do teach skills people can’t learn anywhere else, the benefits simply do not outweigh the negative consequences of overloading already full plates with too much work. A study published in the article “23 Eye-Opening College Student Stress Statistics 2021” claimed “44.9% of college students experience ‘more than average’ levels of stress” and “70% of students stress about their financial situation” (“23 Eye-Opening Statistics”). Stress can have many unwelcome side effects, such as headaches, stomach cramps, grumpiness, tiredness, and even depression (Scott). By adding to students’ stress, the benefits of possessing a job become minimized. The consequences of holding down a job while going to college outweigh any positives.

Yet another reason to drop the independence age to 18 shows in the rates and expenses of all colleges, which continue to increase across America.

Between 2008–09 and 2017–18, average tuition and fees increased in constant dollars by 36 percent at public four-year institutions … while median family income rose by only 8 percent. (Perna)

This increase leaves a 28% gap that full-time college students seem expected to bridge with minimum wage incomes. Family support becomes less likely to help with a parent’s salary only increasing 8%. Perna continues, “The maximum federal Pell Grant covered 60 percent of tuition and fees at public four-year institutions in 2018–19, down from 92 percent in 1998–99.” With the previously mentioned fees for colleges all across the U.S. going up at a towering percentage, the FAFSA program simply will not adapt fast enough. Only paying for little over half of the student’s education will never be adequate, especially considering that in past years FAFSA covered up to 92% of tuition (Perna 2020). Programs like FAFSA expect parents to pay for the student’s college. However, with the college rates rising and financial aid decreasing, this task becomes impossible for many. Furthermore, expecting students to come up with the amount of money to bridge the gap between their low incomes and college costs seems increasingly unjust. By lowering the age of independence, the FAFSA program will have a better idea of the income the majority of students live off while paying for school to distribute more funds fairly and effectively. FAFSA independent age lowering allows students all over to afford to go to the college of their choice and not add the extra financial burden of increasing college tuition and rates.

While reading this paper, people might criticize that if students cannot afford expensive schools, they just go to a cheaper college. Financial expert Dave Ramsey even advertises this point, encouraging students to go to cheaper colleges to earn their education instead of focusing on the name or reputation of the school (Leonhardt). Colleges can be stereotyped as “party schools” or “intellectual schools.” These labels can impact students’ decisions and lead to them picking the more expensive schools based on the “name brand.” That being said, Caitlin M. Zaloom, a professor at New York University, asks us as a people to

Reflect on the assumptions behind these questions, primarily that middle-class and lower-income college students in the United States should not rely on the educational system to support them. These responses assume that the United States, the richest democracy in the world, should encourage its young high achievers and their families to focus not on cultivating their youthful talent and figuring out how to contribute to their communities, but rather on cost—on how they, as individuals, will pay the tuition. (Zaloom 2021)

Zaloom highlights one of the many problems with this system. With the cost of college increasing, many students simply cannot afford to attend a state four-year university or a community college, much less a school like Harvard or Yale.

Looking at the assumptions that the FAFSA program makes, such as parents’ responsibility to pay for their child’s college or that parents can always afford to pay for students’ college sheds some light on the unfairness of the situation. In fact, if parents fail to provide their financial information for the student, “the application will be considered rejected” (Student Federal Aid). A rejected application means that these students will not be receiving any financial aid that year.

Not allowing everyone the opportunity to grow their own talents and intelligence only damages our society. Training new, curious, and intelligent minds must be society’s first priority. The next generation of scientists has the potential to cure cancer, go to Mars, and create beautiful things. This generation, however, becomes stifled by the prospective debt. In a study conducted in 2012, the University of Western Cape found that “finance … (is one) of the main factors that affect the enrolment rate of students” (Matsolo 2012). Students see the expenses of college and stop before they even start. If this study, conducted over a decade ago, found that finances were a burden and hindrance to education, this issue will only continue to expand.

On the other hand, many critics will argue that such financial burdens are not detracting from students’ education but making them care more about their education by putting blood, sweat, and tears into it. These critics may point out that students who don’t put forth effort in paying for school will not put forth effort learning in school either. Although I agree that the money that individuals pay for college could allow each person to care more about their classes and motivates students to put more work into them, on the other hand, having students work detracts from the student’s opportunity. The purpose of college consists of learning and growing. College develops experiences that help students throughout the rest of their lives, whether in a career or with general knowledge to help the future generation understand the world. College increases in difficulty compared to high school. Students that want to learn, want to grow, and want to change, will stay in college, regardless of the hardship. The students that did not will drop out. By lowering the FAFSA dependency rate and allowing those that want to attend to do so, experts will see an increase in students wanting to learn, not a decrease, as the students that always wanted to go to college but could never afford it come rushing in.

The FAFSA program must lower the age of independence from 24 to 18 because basing the dispersal of funding on a parent’s income that will not contribute to paying for tuition increases the amount the full-time student needs to work. In addition, precious studying hours disappear when students are required to work. Furthermore, colleges become more and more expensive, and little to no change in income or FAFSA makes paying for college a nigh impossible task. To live in the thriving, ever-changing world we live in, education must be a part of everyone’s life. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most Powerful weapon we can use to change the world” (Education is the most). We as a community, as peers, and as concerned citizens must fight to arm the future generation.

Works Cited

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“Education Is the Most Powerful Weapon.” Global School Networks, 18 Jan. 2019, www.globalschoolnetworks.com/2019/01/18/education-is-the-most-powerful-we apon/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021.

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“Franklin University.” Master’s Degree Requirements: Eligibility, Prerequisites & Tips, www.franklin.edu/blog/masters-degree-requirements. Accessed 3 Dec. 2021

Leonhardt, Megan. “Money Expert Dave Ramsey Tells Students: Skip the ‘Dream’ College and Go to School Where You Can Afford.” CNBC, CNBC, 7 Oct. 2019, www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/dave-ramsey-tells-students-go-to-school-where-you- can-afford.html. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021.

Matsolo, Mpho Joyce, et al. “Factors Affecting the Enrolment Rate of Students in Higher Education Institutions in the Gauteng Province, South Africa.” Journal of Asian & African Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.), vol. 53, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 64–80. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0021909616657369.

“Opportunity Cost Definition & Meaning.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/opportunity-cost.Accessed 5 Dec. 2021

Perna, Laura W., and Taylor K. Odle. “Recognizing the Reality of Working College Students.” AAUP, 6 Feb. 2020, www.aaup.org/article/recognizing-reality-working-college-students#.YYBE7Br MJPa. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021.

Student Federal Aid General Aid Information, Email to Abbagale Call 5 Nov. 2021. Accessed 5 Nov. 2021.

Rock-Richardson, Audrey. “Pay Your Own Way! (Then Thank Mom).” Newsweek, vol. 136, no. 11, Sept. 2000, p. 12. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=3512260&site=ehos t-live.

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