College is expensive, no one can lie about that.  We pay up to tens of thousands of dollars to sit in the seats you’re sitting in now.  Then later in life we end up with a piece of paper and tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.  We as high school students were told by everyone to apply for federal aid. The most common one in the state of New Jersey is everyone’s favorite…FAFSA.  

FAFSA is federal money that goes to students who apply and need money to help pay for their higher education.  The only issue with this is that most students who apply don’t receive any help.

According to the website, the basic eligibility requirements for financial aid is to, “Be a U.S. citizen or an eligible noncitizen (including a U.S. national or permanent resident) and have a valid Social Security number. Have a high school diploma or GED certificate. Be enrolled or accepted as a student in an eligible degree or certificate program.”

There is one flaw with this.  The financial aid is meant for students in college.  Most people that are eligible to receive financial aid are lower class citizens, but a majority who goes to school is middle to upper class citizens.  Only 20% of students who come from poor or low income families attend secondary school.  

The government assumes that middle class families, since they are able to provide for their families easier, they are then able to afford for their child’s higher education.  What the government doesn’t come to realize is the fact that most students are in charge of paying for their own education. How is a middle class family expected to pay for multiple colleges for their children?

I asked some of my friends, who are all middle class, how much money they received from FAFSA.  Five out of the six said they got none and the other person said they didn’t even know what FAFSA was.  

When I asked one friend all she said was, “$0 !!!! LMAO”.  Enough said.

Money should be spent towards students of low income because it will give students who do attend college an opportunity to receive a college degree.  At the same time, some of this money goes unclaimed because the students don’t attend college. More federal aid should be given to students of the middle class as well.  

Many college students are stuck fighting for the same scholarships, whether they be academic or athletic based, in order to attend college.  FAFSA doesn’t provide enough money to help the middle class students out. Other than that, how else are students supposed to pay for school? Stripping??