Student aid requests soar as economy plummets

[marmar]

from the San Francisco Chronicle:



Student aid requests soar as economy plummets
Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, August 11, 2008

19:16 PDT -- Record numbers of college students are lining up for financial aid - and asking for more of it - as the nation's economic woes hit campuses across the country.

Nationally, 8.9 million students filed federal student aid forms during the first half of 2008, a 16.3 percent increase over the same period last year.

In California, 999,594 students requested federal financial aid during that period - an increase of nearly 20 percent. Bay Area campuses reflect the same trend.

From Santa Clara University and San Jose State University in the South Bay to UC Berkeley and Mills College in the East Bay, financial aid officers say families are increasingly struggling to pay rising college costs while they deal with layoffs, home foreclosures and skyrocketing living expenses.

"What we are seeing is more people filling out requests for financial aid, and for those who do, more people are qualifying and the aggregate need is increasing," said Richard Toomey, associate vice provost at the private Santa Clara University. "Students who haven't needed assistance before are coming in. You had to expect that this was going to happen with all the news of companies laying off thousands of people."

While individual campuses are still sorting out the numbers, data from the U.S. Department of Education show that far more students are filling out the federal financial aid forms than in the past.

The federal data show a 20 percent increase in applications from Santa Clara University students, 21.6 percent from those at San Jose State, 17.1 percent at Mills College, and 19.4 percent at UC Berkeley. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/11/MNN9126CUL.DTL&feed=rss.news