Abuse of Financial Aid
Financial Aid is to be used for attending school and not for living costs. The student debt load in the United States is in the Trillions of dollars due to abuses in the system. The money should always be used responsibly.
However, some loans do involve stipends that students can use to support themselves while they attend full time. Does that count as an abuse of the system? As I understand it, it does not. Depending on the student and the course of study, they can put in enough hours for two full time jobs in one week, between classes, labs, assignments, research, etc. Depending on how the financial aid is worked out for the individual student, that stipend can be a crucial part of their success. I am not a financial aid expert, but I am under the understanding that each student and loan/grant/scholership situation may be different.
We are having a hard time with this at our school. Because we are surrounded by large public colleges that give out the maximum amount of loans and actually encourage students to do so, by the time students want to transfer into our school, they have 2-3 years of general college classes and have almost maxed out their federal loans. This happens particularly in the Nursing programs where students are not accepted into the nursing program, but are told to continue taking classes if they want to be considered for acceptance the following year, then the following year etc. By the third year when they haven't been accepted and come to see RN admissions at our college, they don't have enough FA left to cover the cost of the program because they have been living high with all the living expenses received.
The biggest problems are created by students who seem to actually feel like they should be paid to go to school and those who don't complete a degree. Both situations are often apparent at the beginning of a students pathway. Add that with the encouragement that they are given to over-fund their education, and it explains why the system is where it is. Many local banks and credit unions have stopped doing 'education loans' because they seem to now understand that it's not the education that people are buying with the money...
