The Financial Aid Picture: Realism, Surrealism, or Cubism?

Financial aid for college students has undergone a number of changes throughout the years. This chapter provides a history of financial aid that has been provided by the federal and state governments, colleges, and universities to undergraduate students and how the structure of financial aid programs has changed over time. The metaphor of three art movements is applied—Realism, Surrealism, and Cubism—to analyze the current structure of the nation’s financial aid system to understand how financial aid has been transformed from a focus on meeting the college access needs of low-income students to myriad purposes often in conflict with each other.