A correlation of perceptions of chief and financial aid administrators on the impact of federal financial assistance policies in United Negro College Fund institutions (1980-86), 1988

This dissertation examines the status of enrollment at selected HBCs and endeavors to determine possible sources of influence as perceived by college administrators. The selected sources of influence are (a) aid policies, (b) federal budget cuts, (c) cost of attendance, (d) financial status, (e) employment, and (f) Title IV funding 1980-86. A questionnaire was constructed and pretested to measure the above concepts. Aid policy is defined as the guidelines adopted by the federal government to determine the criteria on which financial assistance should be given to students, universities, and colleges. Federal budget cuts impact is defined as the extent to which budget cuts are perceived by the institution as influencing enroll ment, recruitment strategy, attrition rates, and student loans. Cost of attendance is defined as the extent to which the institution perceives increases in tuition as impacting positively or negatively on enrollment. Financial status is defined as the income level of the parent and/or student. Employment is defined as the extent to which students drop out for a quarter, semester, or more to work to supplement federal financial support. Title IV funding 1980-86 is defined as funds provided by the federal government to assist a student through college financially. Validity was obtained by an item-to-scale correlation in which items with Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients below .3 were dropped. The questionnaire was administered to 6 2 members of 35 UNCF colleges. The results show that HBC chief and financial aid administrators perceive: (a) federal financial aid policies are significantly related to student enrollment, and (b) their own budget cuts, increased cost of atten dance, student employment, and Title IV funding are not significantly related to enrollment. It would appear that the restrictive financial aid policies impact HBC enroll ment negatively and, hence, undermine the concept of equity in education for poor and minority students. It is recom mended that financial aid policies be reformulated to meet the needs of poor and minority students