College Admission Help

College Admission Help: Recession forces changes on prospective collegians
BY KARLA SCHUSTER AND JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Newsday.com

As college acceptance letters land in mailboxes across Long Island, the economic crisis is forcing families and students to seek financial aid in larger numbers and forgo things they took for granted only a year ago - like living on campus, attending a far-flung private institution or even getting into increasingly popular, and competitive, state schools.

Perhaps the strongest indicator that families are scrambling for new ways to pay for college: Nearly 3 million federal financial aid forms had been processed by the end of February, a jump of more than 20 percent over the same time last year, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Local schools also report increases in aid requests.

Meanwhile, applications to more affordable state schools and community colleges are skyrocketing, making already competitive institutions like Stony Brook University even tougher to crack. The school's waiting list is expected to grow by 20 percent this year, because the number and strength of the applicant pool is so much higher.

And around kitchen tables, parents who no longer qualify for home equity loans, who have seen 529 college savings plans plummet or watched colleagues get laid off, are telling their children that their dream schools are now out of reach.

"You're going to have to go local," Amityville's Maereatha Davis recalls telling her daughter Yasmine, a senior at Roosevelt High School, as the economy began to sputter last September. "She didn't take it too well. I do understand the disappointment. All Yasmine has ever talked about is Howard or Temple."

Instead, she's been accepted to Nassau Community College and is waiting to hear from several other local schools.

Jacquelyn Nealon, vice president of enrollment services at New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, has heard similar stories - from wealthy enclaves to middle-class subdivisions - as she crisscrosses Long Island school districts, conducting financial aid workshops for parents.

"What's remarkable this year is that it's so pervasive - it touches every single family," Nealon said. "I think the biggest shock to many families is that they might have to make that tough decision and say, 'I can't afford to send you where you want to go,' " she said. "For many of them, it might be the first time they've ever had to say 'no' to their child for a financial reason."



Second thoughts. Among that group are students like Henry Kochhar, a Syosset High School senior who had his heart set on New York University or Boston University but is having second thoughts about the cost.

"Is this really worth $50,000?" he said. "I could go to a state school."

His father, Chandar Kochhar, owns an import-export garment business and insists he can afford private school. Nonetheless, he is encouraging Henry to consider a SUNY school.

"It's not a question of a bargain," Chandar Kochhar said, but of whether it makes sense to spend so much money on an undergraduate degree when Henry is still undecided about his career goals. So far, he's been accepted to several schools, including Villanova University, Stony Brook and Binghamton University. He didn't make NYU, and is still waiting to hear from BU.

"It's an uncertain time and families are struggling," said Jessica Eads, vice president for enrollment management at Hofstra University, where applications are running about the same as last year, but financial aid applications are up about 6 percent overall and 10 percent among freshmen.

The explosion of applications at public schools comes as families redefine "safety schools" based on their ability to pay, rather than their child's chances of getting accepted. A Princeton Review survey of prospective college freshmen and parents released last week found that more than a third said they were applying to more "financial aid safety" schools than they originally planned.

"The value of the institution is becoming more and more evident because of the economy," said Matthew Whelan, assistant provost for enrollment management at Stony Brook, where the average SAT score of the middle 50 percent of this fall's applicant pool is a whopping 20 points higher than last year. As of mid-March, freshman applications for this fall are pushing 27,000, compared with a total of just over 25,000 for fall 2008.

"There's been a dramatic increase in the quality of our applications," Whelan said, but it has come as the state slashes the state university system budget, leaving schools unable to increase the number of students they accept.

"There are students who likely would have been admitted last year that this year will find themselves on the waiting list," he said.

Farmingdale State College doesn't have a waiting list, but officials there have also seen an uptick in the quality and number of applications for this fall.

"We are getting transfer applications from students who wouldn't have given us the time of day a year ago," said Lucia Cepriano, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Farmingdale, where freshman applications for the fall are up about 15 percent over last year and transfer applications are up nearly 26 percent.

Out-of-state public schools popular with Long Island students, like the University of Delaware, also have seen increases in the number of applications from in-state students. While Delaware still expects to enroll most of its class from outside the state and has room to accept as many as 200 more freshmen than last year, Admissions Director Lou Hirsh said out-of-staters faced tougher competition.

"We do pledge to take in all state residents who are qualified so they'll take up more spots this year," Hirsh said. "There are simply so many more good kids to choose from."



Concern about taking on debt
Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FINAID.org, a nonprofit organization that provides information about college financial aid, said the uncertain job market has made more students leery of going into debt.

"Students are looking at low-cost institutions where they can be less reliant on private student loans," he said. "There's an increasing emphasis on picking schools that they can afford even if they don't get any financial aid."

Meanwhile, the tightening credit market has made home equity loans and private student loans tougher to get - 39 lenders have stopped making private student loans since July 2007, according to FINAID.org. As a result, the volume of borrowing in total dollars through more affordable federal student loan programs has increased 17 percent over the past year, according to the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit independent research and policy organization.

"They are a lot more aware of tuition than they were previously," Malverne High School guidance counselor Nicole Beauford said of her students. "They are a lot more concerned about coming out of school with $100,000 in loans."

Still, the Ivies and other competitive private schools remain popular - and are hedging their bets against an exodus to comparable public schools by increasing their financial aid budgets.

Syracuse University, for example, logged about 21,000 applications for the fall - the second-highest number in the school's history. And while the school raised tuition by 4.5 percent, it increased its institutional financial aid budget by 11 percent, to about $167 million. Average institutional scholarships for middle-income families are expected to rise 15 percent, while those for low-income families will go up 29 percent, President Nancy Cantor said in a letter to the university community this month.

"We do think that there will be students with financial concerns that may choose a lower cost option [than Syracuse], but we have what we think are strong financial aid awards," said Don Saleh, vice president for enrollment management at Syracuse, where financial aid applications are up about 10 percent.

As families make decisions in the coming weeks, geography will be another new factor for many, according to guidance counselors and admissions experts.

"Kids are looking at distance more intently than they ever did," said Carolyn Cutter, guidance coordinator for the Long Beach school district, noting that many are asking: "Is it a plane ride out to a college?"

Michael Kresh, a financial planner in Islandia, said: "These are subtle things that people weren't looking at in detail a couple of years ago."



Commuting to save money. Still others are considering living at home and commuting to school for the first year or two, a trend that has led to a 10 percent increase in Long Island applicants to both the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and Adelphi University.

"We have many more inquiries than we've ever had from families locally asking, 'What are your costs, what are the differences between commuting and being a resident?' " said Gary Bergman, director of admissions at C.W. Post.

Amityville High School senior Shamelia Loiseau, who hopes to get into Columbia University, is making similar calculations. With a 4.0 grade point average and the expectation of being named valedictorian, Loiseau has the pedigree to go Ivy League.

But she isn't sure she can afford it.

Loiseau is not alone: the biggest worry about applying to college among this year's high school seniors, according to the Princeton Review survey, is that they will get into their first-choice college but won't have enough money or financial aid to attend.

"I'll still be happy I could get into such a prestigious school," Loiseau said. "They always say an education is an education no matter where you get it. I'm trying not to get caught up with the name."



College Admission Help: Recession forces changes on prospective collegians