I managed to pick up the last copy of the Friday Technician that was outside of Clark and was immediately drawn to the article about possible financial aid changes. While reading the article, I was very upset to see a quote from Ms. Julie Rice Mallette that stated the following: “As a result, the biggest reduction we will see is for students with a $0 family contribution.” Well, this quote directly contradicts one goal of the possible change in the system, which was to move “more funds to lower income students…”. Either Ms. Mallette is a hypocrite or she’s lying. I am one of those “over 2,100 students in the $0 family contribution category” and to be quite honest, I would be paying off my school loans, if I had to get any, for at least the next 40 years because of my chosen field of teaching. How is this change in financial aid “much less dramatic when put into context”? I think that by putting it into the context that Ms. Mallette uses you tend to turn a blind eye to the poor, high-achieving students who just can’t afford going to school without help from somewhere. I also want to address Mr. Tyler Simmons and say that NCSU is the most affordable school that I was accepted to and, as an in-state student, $18,000 per year, the approximate cost of attendance, is more than double the total income of my family.

I also find laughable the fact that the financial aid will be capped so as to not even consider families who make more than $90,000. I find this cap far too excessive, mainly because with planning and saving $5,000 per year for every year their child is alive, something I feel is very possible for a family making $50,000, would, by the time they are 18, amount to $90,000, only enough for all of college and possibly a car. Well, with this cap in place, one should see no huge difference in the number of people trying to get financial aid so I don’t see how this is moving financial aid towards those in the greatest need. I feel that loans should be tiered in the opposite manner from financial aid, with as little financial aid as possible for the lowest income tier coming from loans.

I don’t know how the system works, and probably never will; however, I do hope that somebody fixes the system so that people who are the worst off financially and still have a desire to succeed can do so without cost being a constraint.

Thomas Grimes

sophomore, science education