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Students at a Paying for College Bus Tour stop, Reading, PA

Lower income families, minorities have least information about college financial aid, Harris Poll finds

The Sallie Mae Fund launches Project Access, a three-year, $15 million initiative.

RESTON, Va., Jan. 20, 2003—Lower income families, who most need information about financial aid for college, have the least information about how to pay for higher education, according to a new Harris Poll, commissioned by The Sallie Mae Fund. Among families making less than $50,000 per year, 60% said they need more information about how to pay for college, versus 37% of those making more than $75,000 per year. Nearly half (45%) of parents surveyed with income less than $25,000 per year said they have "no idea" how they are going to pay for college for their children.

Significantly, the Harris Interactive^® survey found that knowledge about financial aid is a key predictor of whether a young adult is likely to attend college—the more a young adult knows about financial aid, the more likely he or she is to pursue a higher education.

Minority families who were part of the survey expressed a greater need for financial aid information, with 66% of African-American parents and 62% of Hispanic-American parents saying they do not have enough information about how to pay for college, versus 44% of white parents. On average, Hispanic-American parents also receive financial aid information more than two years later than other parents do (child’s average age was 17 for Hispanic families, versus 15 for white and African-American families).

According to the survey, many parents and young adults are not aware of even basic sources of financial aid. For instance, 62% of all parents and 65% of young adults planning to attend college did not name grants as a source of financial aid.

"With all the news about rising tuition costs, families may draw the conclusion that a higher education is not affordable for them,” said Joyce Smith, executive director, National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). "NACAC is committed to helping students transition from high school to college by raising awareness about financial aid that is available. We hope that will help more families consider college as an option."

"By giving high school students the opportunity to meet with representatives of HBCUs from across the country, we hope to expand their horizons and bring vital information directly to students and their families," said Eric Williams, CEO of the Trinity Higher Education Corporation (THEC). "Through this initiative, we hope to encourage many more students to pursue a college education."

“The Sallie Mae Fund is committed to opening the doors of educational opportunity as widely as possible, and these survey results help to inform our action plan to accomplish that goal,” said Albert L. Lord, vice chairman and CEO of Sallie Mae. "We are directing our philanthropy dollars toward creating a level playing field for less advantaged students, and we are calling our community-based initiative 'Project Access.'"

In response to the study’s findings and to bolster its work to date on the access issue, The Sallie Mae Fund today announced a three-year $15 million commitment for Project Access. The effort, designed to improve access to higher education, will target under-served populations through a series of efforts, including:

• Launching regional public awareness campaigns in English and Spanish;
• Promoting a toll-free number (1-866-858-7166) that offers, under the Fund's First in My Family umbrella, educational information on planning and paying for college in both English and Spanish;
• Executing, in 2003, at least 135 Paying for College workshops around the country (up from 90 in 2002);
• Producing, in conjunction with Allbritton Communications, a half-hour Paying for College television program that will air three times this spring in at least seven U.S. markets, including in Washington, DC, on WJLA, the ABC affiliate;
• Partnering with NACAC on the 2003 Paying for College tour and in assisting with additional distribution of educational materials;
• Supporting programs that foster academic achievement, such as Reading is Fundamental, Junior Achievement and pre-K literacy programs; and
• Increasing scholarship commitments in 2003 by awarding more than $2 million in scholarships to low-income and minority students.

The population of college-age youth is expected to grow by nearly five million, or 16% between 2000 and 2015, with 80% of the increase being non-white youth and 50% of that growth Hispanic (Carnavale and Frye, 2000).

According to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 60% of new jobs created between now and 2010 will require some post-secondary training, and lowering the college participation gap between low- and high-income young adults could add $250 billion in gross domestic product and $80 billion in tax revenue to the U.S. Treasury.

For more information, contact:
Stephen Heyman
202/969-8004

Martha Holler
703/810-5178

Learn more about the survey's key findings or download the report: The Sallie Mae Fund: Strengthening our Commitment to Access (PDF, 248 KB).

Methodology

Financial Aid: The Information Divide, designed to determine the level of Americans’ access to information about paying for college and how that information affects decisions about attending college, was conducted for the Sallie Mae Fund by Harris Interactive by telephone within the United States between September 3, 2002 and October 6, 2002 and surveyed 1,090 parents of college-age adults (age 18–24) and 811 college-age adults (age 18–24). Interviewing for parents was conducted using Random Digit Dial (RDD) sample and interviewing for young adults was conducted using targeted age sample for the 18–24 population. The parents' sample was weighted to represent parents of children age 18–24 and the young adult's sample was weighted to represent the 18–24 year old population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

The Sallie Mae Fund, a charitable organization sponsored by Sallie Mae, achieves its mission—to increase access to a post–secondary education for America's students—by supporting programs and initiatives that help open doors to higher education, prepare families for their investment, and bridge the gap when no one else can. For more information visit www.salliemaefund.org.

Harris Interactive^® (www.harrisinteractive.com) is a worldwide market research and consulting firm best known for The Harris Poll^®, and for pioneering the Internet method to conduct scientifically accurate market research. Headquartered in Rochester, New York, U.S.A., Harris Interactive combines proprietary methodologies and technology with expertise in predictive, custom and strategic research. The Company conducts international research through wholly owned subsidiaries—London-based HI Europe (www.hieurope.com) and Tokyo-based Harris Interactive Japan—as well as through the Harris Interactive Global Network of local market-and opinion-research firms, and various U.S. offices

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