STATEMENT OF DR. LESTER B. BROWN, FLORIDA MEMORIAL COLLEGE Dr. BROWN. Thank you, Congressman Lehman, your colleagues. I think that Florida Memorial College is no different from other institutions in the Nation as private institutions and the kind of help that the Congress of the United States can give to students who will attend the college is of inestimable value to the institutions. Now, we are presently participating in the BEOG, SEOG, NDSL and GSL, guaranteed student loans. Now, as of the moment there are only two institutions that are participating in the guaranteed student loan program. Both of those are Federal savings and loan associations, the names of which at the moment escape me. We are having some problems with the BEOG and the SEOG programs in terms of once the forms are filled out and because of the distances that these forms have to travel before they are processed and before the institutions know the number of students and the amount of aid that they're going to be given, puts us in a strain in terms of having to carry on affairs until such time as we are notified and our students know the amount of aid they're going to get, either through the national defense student loan or the guaranteed student loan or either through the basic educational opportunity grant or the supplementary educational opportunity grant. Mr. LEHMAN. May I interrupt you? Dr. BROWN. Yes. Mr. LEHMAN. What you're saying, I think, is sometimes only a week before the students know they are going to enroll at Florida Memorial, they may come out there, and then for the next 10 or 12 weeks they're going to be enrolled, and you're going to have to kind of carry them on the cuff Dr. BROWN [interposing]. That's right. Mr. LEHMAN [continuing]. Until that time in 12 or 14 weeks later when the decision is made and only then. It seems to me that these delays are unnecessarily long, and as I said before to the others who were here earlier, if it seems as though it's unusually long, if your student will contact our office, if you happen to live in this congressional' district, or whoever their Congressman is, I'm sure they could expedite the application and make it a little easier for you under the circumstances. Dr. BROWN. Now, one of the other problems that we have had, and I'm not sure it's peculiar to our institution, is in the matter of filling out the parents' confidential forms. We find that our students oftentime do not necessarily know the income of their parents and the process that they have to go through in getting the parents to sign it and to put down all these Mr. LEHMAN [interposing]. A notary public and all that? Dr. BROWN. Yes, that has posed a particular problem for us as we see it. We've talked about this. We have instituted programs to assist our students in this area in terms of what we do at the college and the financial aid's office, calling assemblies to instruct students in how to fill out the forms and putting them in the mail and of contacting their parents to make sure that they are putting down the accurate family income. Now, we have a little problem of our students putting down more than their parents actually earn, and this obviously Mr. LEHMAN [interposing]. Especially when adjusted income. Dr. BROWN. That's right, and this affects the level of the BEOG grant or the SEOG grant, as well as the NDSL and GSL loans they get. Mr. LEHMAN. How many of your students come from out of town? You have a dormitory? Dr. BROWN. Yes; we can house 501 students. Mr. LEHMAN. You have 501 enrollees? Dr. BROWN. Yes, that are from out of town- that live on campus, let's put it that way, because some of the students who live on campus are, say, from Homestead or Perrine or Naranja or somewhere like that that would be most inconvenient for them to travel to and from the school every day. Mr. LEHMAN.. And how many commute? Dr. BROWN. Oh, we probably have close to 300 who commute. Dr. BROWN. Yes; most of our students are residents. Mr. LEHMAN. So your students have an additional burden because the FIU students and the Miami-Dade students don't have to pay for dormitory space. Dr. BROWN. That's right, and you see, when the students are on campus, it means the school is carrying them for room and board which is very high-you know-it gets to be quite a burden for the institution to carry students over a very long period of time waiting for one of these to come through or a combination to come through. Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Webb, would you identify yourself? STATEMENT OF ROSCOE WEBB, DEAN OF STUDENTS, FLORIDA MEMORIAL COLLEGE Mr. WEBB. I'm Roscoe Webb, dean of students at Florida Memorial College. One thought that we've encountered is that the 18-year-old law is confusing when it comes to filling out the parent confidential statement or the student confidential statement. A student says to us that, OK, I'm an adult, I'm a voting adult, and then I fill out the student confidential statement, and then when I list that I'm living with my parents, although I'm taking care of myself, then that's Mr. LEHMAN [interposing]. Have been probably for several years. Mr. WEBB. Yes; so what we need is some adjustment there if any can be made or some interpretation of how it should be done because that delays also, you see, because that form has to be filled out before they can be granted any of these financial aids that we're talking about now. Other than that, what Dr. Brown said is just about covers our basic problems. The time element is important. Take for instance now. We have not received in writing the appropriations from many of the financial aid sources. We have received word that there will be X number of dollars for us, but not in writing. So that in a sense holds us back as to what we're going to allocate for each student when it comes to his work-study and in balancing his total package. So if it could be expedited a little faster, the time span of when the student received it-when we get the information would certainly help us quite a bit. Mr. LEHMAN. To go back to your excuse me, Doctor. Dr. BROWN. Yes; let me identify myself properly. I'm Dean of the College at Florida Memorial College, and I would like to make an additional statement Congressman. One of the things that's a burden to our students, many of our students are first-time college enrollees in their entire family. Ninetyseven percent of all of the students we serve are on some type of financial aid. One of the things that affects our students lately is any kind of a loan that has to be repaid. Now, the kind of aid that our students really need has to do with that kind of aid that is not repayable or at least when I say not repayable, we're not asking for welfare, but we're simply saying that in order to break the poverty cycle that the burden that is placed upon our students once they graduate from college to repay large sums of money for their college education is a real burden. One of the things that we are hopeful of is that the amount of money appropriated by the Congress of the United States for the basic educational opportunity grant and for the supplementary educational opportunity grant would be tremendously increased, and it would certainly be used wisely and be well worth the time and the effort and the money the Congress would put into it in terms of the number of students who would become taxpayers, rather than tax collectors in terms of the welfare rolls and in terms of food stamps and this kind of thing. I think that it may be good for our Congressman and his colleagues to know this because this is a very serious feeling among the constituency that we serve. When a student is the first one in his family to graduate from a college, and obviously he gets out he begins to buy of the people kinds of services like refrigerators and stoves and an automobile to go to work in and this kind of thing, so they consider it an extra burden when they have to go through the loan route, rather than through the BEOG or the SEOG route. Mr. LEHMAN. I can understand what you're saying, and I know that these young people have multiple financial and economic problems that usually transcend the educational costs of many of the middle class. But at the same time if we can afford them the opportunity of attending college and they do graduate, they do have a profession. If necessary, it's better to owe the money than not to go through at all. Dr. BROWN. That's right; I agree with that. Mr. LEHMAN. And I think we'll have to find out which way we can do it best. There must be various pathways we could offer these young people. To get back to Mr. Webb's statement in regards to the independent status of these young people who have been living away from their facilies for several years and self-supporting for several years, then they go to college, and all of a sudden they find they're dependent on their families. 42-884-75- -9 To me, there is something unethical, immoral, or impractical in this because we encourage our 18- and 20-year-olds to be mature; we encourage them to be independent; we encourage them to stand on their own two feet. We tell them to be self-reliant, and we let them vote, and we tell them they can join the military services and, if necessary, they're subject to the draft. Then all of a sudden they go to college, and they apply for a loan, and then they are asked, What's Mom and Dad making? Do Mom and Dad still owe money on the house? It destroys their independence and is destructive. To deal with them in this manner is to make them technically financially dependent on their parents' income as to whether they qualify for student assistance. I know if you remove this, the existing money would be spread out more thinly, but I think the problem is not the way you keep score, but the availability of the funds at this time. The student from a family in which the mother and father have been careful and have paid off the mortgage on the house, then the student perhaps isn't qualified for a student loan. But if the mother and father have been imprudent and have just mortgaged their house, then for some reason or other the student could qualify for a loan. Dr. BROWN. Mr. Lehman, one of the things I would like to say personally is that, it is my hope that the Congress of the United States, the leadership like yourself, that somehow a way can be found to provide the opportunity for youngsters such as the constituency that we serve go to college, and at the same time not rip off middle-class America. I do not believe that we ought to provide legislation that provides for one group, though it is in need, and there is another group that is self-supporting, that is paying the majority of the taxes of this country, and they're not getting the relief. So we are aware of the problem that you face and of the magnitude of the kind of solution that you must eventually reach, and we just wanted you to know that we're aware of this. Mr. LEHMAN. I understand, and even though your students may not come from middle-class America, they're going to middle-class America, and time runs off pretty fast. Dr. BROWN. That's right, that's right. Mr. WEBB. One last statement is that, although Florida provides an educational grant for our students, somewhere along the lines the counseling or the getting the information to those young people who need to know that this money is available is not getting to our young people. I don't want to blame anybody, but I certainly want the information to be available-known that it's not getting to them. Mr. LEHMAN. The pipelines are tough. We mail out to the guidance counselors at the high schools from our office alone hundreds and hundreds of bulletins to pass out to the students, to use with their students in order to find pathways for financial assistance, but somewhere along the lines it doesn't get to them. Mr. WEBB. I've gone into high schools to do recruiting or to speak to a group of young people and ask them about this, you know, what is it that you know is available for you? Then I look on the counselor's desk under five books, and I find a stack of applications that haven't been used. I've been a counselor, so I'm not talking about counselors because I'm in counseling and guidance, but I do think that if there is any way that this group can get the information to the students, it will certainly help some young people that don't come to college that would come. That may be the difference in their coming, that $800 or that $1,500 or $1,200, whatever the amount may be. Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Franklin? Mr. FRANKLIN. About what is the ratio of grant aid to loan aid now in the case of a typical student? Mr. WEBB. One-half, I would say, and that's not good. When a student has to borrow half of his-the money it takes for him to finance his education, he's in debt up to here when he leaves and unable to pay it right away because all these kids may not get a job the first year. You know, you may get a job, but not the kind of a job in keeping with what you graduated with the degree you graduated with. I think most of you know that, and it ought not to be just that percentage. Maybe it ought to be one-fourth payback, and the rest of it ought to be a grant, work-study, or something of this sort. Dr. BROWN. Because in the final analysis once the student gets a job, he can rapidly move into middle-class America, but if he has an extra thing in terms of repayment, it mitigates against the rapidity with which he becomes a middle-class American. I'm convinced that if we could have more taxpayers, the better off we're going to be. Mr. LEHMAN. What you're saying, the best way to pay this money back is through income taxes. Dr. BROWN. That's right, that's right. Mr. LEHMAN. John? Mr. LEE. Do you find that a lot of your students aren't able to get the federally insured loans who might want to take them out because lending institutions don't cooperate? Dr. BROWN. That's a part of the problem. We don't have an overwhelming majority of the lending institutions participating in the program, at least for the constituency that we serve. Mr. LEE. And you have NDSL loans? Dr. BROWN. Yes. Mr. LEE. Which you can file? Dr. BROWN. Yes. Mr. WEBB. But you know that's not going to be soon. NDSL is going to be replaced, going out altogether. Mr. LEE. In terms of the people knowing about loans, I know that the Office of Education has made an effort this year to try to make that program more generally known and advertised in many different kinds of ways. Has it seemed to improve for the students Mr. WEBB. We're still having problems with it. Mr. LEE. Could you specify? Mr. WEBB. They're not getting the information as to the availability of the funds, and it is my thinking that on certain of those grants the information ought to begin at high school-lower than high school, you know. Those students, when they get to the tenth grade, they |