Scholarship Red Tape

Every year thousands of penniless students file through the Financial Aid Office to get applications for scholarships. Every year they take these forms to their rooms and stare at them for nervous hours until, in desperation, they create a collection of numbers with which to fill the small boxes on this form. This done, they return the forms to the Financial Aid Office and wait hopefully for a grant of assistance.

Such labor is in itself an absurdity, since it requires the student to produce figures which he does not have and implies that his grant will depend upon these figures. Few students know how much money they spend on entertainment, books, laundry, or anything else. Those who do know realize that they spend more on these items than the financial aid office allows, and therefore fill in the maximum figure. They then balance their imaginary budget by neglecting to report part of their income.

The Financial Aid Office is perfectly aware that students cannot manage their own finances and that their figures are likely to be purely mathematical figments. Consequently, the office pays virtually no attention to the student's estimate, assuming that he can live on an arbitrarily determined budget and that through work or loans he can earn $650 towards this budget. The office is interested in the more meticulous, if no more scrupulous, parent, whose financial condition varies from year to year.

The only reason for requiring students to account for their income and expenses is that such an accounting maintains the illusion of student financial responsibility. When both the office and the student have recognized this responsibility as illusory, the lengthy forms serve no purpose, except in inuring the student to dishonesty in filling out forms. If the financial aid office is preparing the undergraduate for his 1040 blanks, the practice should be continued. Otherwise, they should recognize the fact that students do not keep accounts, and simplify their form by asking only for information which can be accurately given and used.