Condition of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students (review)

The cost of postsecondary education and students' perceived ability to pay intervene throughout the college choice process of lower-income students (Cabrera & LaNasa, 2001). These financial factors not only affect which colleges students attend, but more importantly, whether they attend (Cabrera & LaNasa) or persist to graduation (St. John, Paulson, & Starkey, 1996). Historically, financial aid in its various forms promised to be the great equalizer for qualified, lower-income students (Hern, 1999). Whether contemporary financial aid programs live up to this promise is the empirical question addressed in Conditions of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students, edited by Donald E. Heller.

Heller's book is written as a companion to and continuation of Access Denied: Restoring the Nation's Commitment to Equal Educational Opportunity (2001) commissioned by President Bush's Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, although one need not be familiar with Access Denied to benefit from Heller's work. These two works serve a similar purpose: to elevate the discussion of higher education access for lower-income students to a national level.

Heller assembled an impressive group of 14 nationally recognized experts to contribute to his volume, representing academic faculty and administrators, financial aid researchers, and higher education policy makers. Each author, including Heller, contributes to the two overall goals of the book: (a) examining how the "shifts in educational policy at the federal, state, and institutional levels have affected access to [baccalaureate] higher education for student of different backgrounds" and, (b) projecting "the impact of current policies on the large cohort of college-age students" expected to enter postsecondary education in the next two decades (p. x). Each goal is met, highlighting a disturbing gap between the college participation levels between higher-income and lower-income students as a result of pricing and financial aid policies.

The book is organized into four thematic sections: postsecondary participation patterns of lower-income students; the status of federal, state, and institutional financial aid patterns; student support programs designed to supplement financial programs (e.g., TRIO and GEAR-UP); and, the projections of the effects of current financial aid policies on future students. In each section the authors attend to the differential impact of the changing financial aid policies and practices on postsecondary access for lower-income students. The book provides a strong historical perspective of financial aid programs in the United States, contextualizing the discussion of current realities within the original aspirations of financial aid legislation. It further provides empirical evidence for the success and failure of these programs, as well as the perils that lie ahead if current deficiencies are not corrected.

The final section of the book puts the previous chapters in the context of, and places the emphasis on, the future of financial aid in higher education. The book concludes with a powerfully written chapter addressing the policy priority changes necessary to meet the needs of an increasing number of lower-income students. A. Clayton Spencer contextualizes these priorities in contemporary economic and political realities, including President Bush's Leave No Child Behind and tax initiatives; the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and resulting military actions; and the accountability movement in K-12 education. Spencer calls for a refocus on increased access for lower-income students as the underlying goal of all financial aid programs and, supported by the data presented throughout the book, presents a realistic strategy to this end.

The book is written for a national policy audience. Although some understanding of how financial aid and postsecondary pricing/costing works is assumed by the authors, the text is readily comprehensible. The book is filled with easy-to-understand figures and graphs that complement the text and reinforce the data. Because of the intended audience, student affairs generalists reading this book in search of specific practices to improve access on their campuses...