With the Higher Education Act (HEA) up for renewal this year, a leading Hispanic education organization is seeking to shake up current thinking about federal policy with a collection of new ideas that would re-imagine student financial aid for college.
In a new report, Excelencia in Education proposes to allow students to change the financial aid formula for work-study, allow students to use financial aid for remedial courses and require that students file financial aid forms at the same time they apply to college.
“Effective financial aid policy means more than just money,” says Deborah Santiago, Excelencia in Education vice president for policy and research. “It also means re-imagining aid to serve students well.”
While the new study, Using a Latino Lens to Reimagine Aid Design and Delivery, focuses primarily on the needs of Hispanic students, it also calls for a new terminology to describe much of today’s post-secondary population. Instead of “non-traditional” students, for example, the study calls for adopting the term “post-traditional student.”
The post-traditional student is “a growing majority,” Santiago says. Often, these students work 30 hours or more per week, attend college part time and may not be fully college-ready in major academic subjects.
While the term ‘non-traditional’ generally applies to students older than age 24 who may work full or part time, Santiago argues that the word has outlived its usefulness. “The term ‘non-traditional’ sounds like it’s an exception to the rule,” she says. “‘Post-traditional’ represents an evolution beyond traditional.”
More than 35 percent of students now attend college part time, including more than half of Latino students, the report notes.
