MSHE Alumni Spotlight: Danielle Long
The following story was originally published in the MSHE Alumni Newsletter in August 2023.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in Danielle's interview are her own and do not necessarily reflect the position of DePaul University
MSHE Graduate Assistant Isabel Tamas (MS ’23): Could you tell me about your career background? When did you graduate from MSHE and what has your career path look like since then?
Danielle: I graduated in 2017. And before I graduated, I started working at College of Lake County, with the financial aid office. And I've had a couple of different roles within financial aid since then currently. I'm working at DePaul as a financial trainer. So my actual job is to explain financially to people. So I do in fact talk about it all the time. I'll stop there and you can expand on whatever you want.
Isabel: Could you expand more on your current role? What does that look like for you? And how has it expanded your understanding of college affordability and access?
Danielle: Yeah, so, I actually just started at DePaul in April. So this, this is a new role. It's my first time working--except for my graduate assistantship at Northwestern--it's my first time working at a private university. And it's been very interesting because I previously only worked at public schools or with third-party servicers in financial aid. It's so interesting to see what a university can do when they have that much more say on how they fund their students. I obviously can't speak for [all] universities as a whole but DePaul in particular is really able to take its endowment dollars and whatever dollars that it has that are not state and federal and say, "Here are the demographics that we want to expand on our campus,” or “Here the demographics that we're seeing are having trouble” and they can [direct the funds to them]. And that's, really interesting to see.
Isabel: Yeah, so maybe let's talk about [the differences between private and public institutions]. You have [experienced] lots of different institutional types, and I was wondering if you could just expand on what it looks like to work in financial aid at [institutions].
Danielle: First, the student population is very different, especially between a community college and traditional four year. [At] community colleges you get people who may be your traditional aged college student right out of high school, but you're also getting people who are 47 and coming back to finish a degree from 20 years ago or starting a brand new one or even just taking one class to sort of, upskill themselves. Whereas especially at a at a four-year school, especially a private four-year school, you're getting a much more traditional aged population. Before MSHE I worked at NIU in the admissions office briefly. And one thing that's really interesting is that is that between Northern Illinois University (NIU), and College of Lake County and DePaul, I actually didn't see [the] difference I thought I would see [in the] racial diversity of the students. Because private schools tend to have trouble both attracting and retaining ethnically diverse students. But DePaul is actually really good at that, almost half of the student population is not white. And so that's actually something that wasn't different, that I would have expected to see. Of course that's not necessarily true at every private school. But, let me tell you how that relates to financial aid. Despite the fact that they have similar student [racial and ethnic minority] populations. The age and the type of school impacts the types of financial aid that [students] are using and especially whether they're borrowing or not. So certainly, at College of Lake County, I did not see as many students borrowing large amounts. With DePaul they do. I previously worked not at Indiana Tech specifically, but with Indiana Tech students, and they were absolutely borrowing a ton. And with College of Lake County, I would talk to [students] about student loans, but they could take out $5,000 and cover their whole year. So it's very different seeing [DePaul] students coming in and having to borrow $20,000, to pay for a year of school. Usually, that means they have to go out even into private loans, and I've had to learn a lot more things about private loans than I've ever had before. But definitely the types of aid and the amounts that are being thrown around are very different.
Isabel: Yes, thank you so much for that. That's a really great, foundational piece of context to know and I want to zoom us out even further. Can you describe for me just the current state of college access and affordability in higher ed overall? Can you identify the key factors that are contributing to these rising costs and fees?
Danielle: There's this foundational form that you may have filled yourself called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Which is essentially saying, “Hey, federal government, I would like money for college.” And that goes toward grants, loans, lots of different types of things. Basically, every major part of the FAFSA is changing for the next aid year. And that means a lot of stuff. It changes who is eligible for certain types of aid. It changes certain things that will or will not be asked of students who are trying to access these funds. Some people will get a lot more, some people will get a lot less. There's a whole lot of changes going on at the moment, and that naturally has implications. One of the reasons that is going on is because college costs are rising. This is ideally supposed to address the people who need it the most. I would say one thing [leading to the rising cost of college] is that state funding of higher ed has dropped drastically over time. If you look back 30-40 years ago, the states were funding higher ed at a much higher rate than they currently are. Some states are doing better about it than others. Illinois is actually decent in terms of that, but still not as good as it was years ago. But honestly, even though I know that you and I are here as higher ed administrators, the cost of administration has risen a lot too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because administrators don't work for free, and we shouldn’t. We've just sort of realized as a community of higher ed people that certain populations need their own support staff. And we need counseling centers, and things like that. And those are all really important, but they cost money. And since states are not funding like they used to, especially for schools that are not in the top tier, their only ability to raise those funds is typically tuition because they don't have large endowments. To me, those issues [combine] and cause [increasing costs of higher education]. But like I said, ideally, a lot of groups that were having issues affording [higher education] should be having some good changes coming their way.
Isabel: Absolutely. And thank you so much for bringing attention to the rising cost of administration. I feel like that's something that really isn't highlighted when I have conversations about this. That's especially relevant to this conversation.
Danielle: Yeah. And it's hard because I know that I am contributing to this. But also, the financial aid people have to be there to give you money. And the admissions people have to be there to manage who is in the in the university. So. It's a weird line to walk, you know, I know that this is causing overall an issue, but I don't know how [an alternative]. I would like you to afford college, I would also like to afford my bills.
Isabel: Thank you for mentioning that, it definitely is an interesting line to walk. Again, taking a look at the wider context, there were some recent support Supreme Court decisions that were made regarding higher education. How do you see these Supreme Court decisions impacting college affordability?
Danielle: To be quite honest, the major recent ones, including the affirmative action and the student loan forgiveness decisions. I don't honestly think that they will affect it so much [directly] Because they don't really impact [how much] schools can charge for tuition. They don't impact what funds [schools] can give out. But [indirectly] if a student sees that the Supreme Court said no, I can't get this forgiveness. Now I'm more worried about taking out loans. And now maybe I don't want to go to school, [maybe] I want to go to a school that's not my first choice that isn't as good of a fit for me. And in that sense, I think it does [affect access overall]. It affects access more than affordability. The people who are going to be making that decision are not your wealthiest students because they don't have to worry about that. And in particular, there are lots of groups who have statistically been demonstrated to be less willing to borrow than other groups. In addition to the fact that schools are not as able to consider race as they previously have been doing, I would imagine that that's going to really impact the demographic groups that may seem interested in coming to institutions.
Isabel: Speaking of disparities across different demographic groups. Are there any specific demographic groups that face greater barriers when it comes to accessing and affording college and what are some of the reasons behind these disparities?
Danielle: One that I don't think will surprise you at all is undocumented students. Primarily because they are not eligible for any federal aid. In a lot of states they are eligible for state aid which is great. Illinois is one of those states. And California is another big one that does offer their state aid to undocumented students. Of course, schools can individually do that as well. Illinois Tech is really friendly to undocumented students, so is DePaul and a couple of others. [Undocumented students] just have less money available to them, and because they're undocumented, they're very unlikely to be living in high income families for whom [finances] wouldn't be an issue. But the other one that I think is about to face even more challenges than they previously did is students in rural areas. One of the big changes that's coming to FAFSA in the next 2024-2025 aid year is that it used to be that if you have a family farm, especially if it was small, you wouldn't have to count that necessarily as an asset because the idea was that this is your livelihood, and you're already reporting the income you earn from the farm. But now, they're going to be counting all of the net worth of a family farm, even if the farm itself is small. A lot of schools in rural areas, and my colleagues who work at schools in rural areas are very concerned about how their enrollment is going to change because some of these families are going to go from full Pell Grant to nothing. And it's going to be very sudden. There's not a drop off. There's nothing gradual. It's just—they're not going to have anything and they can't sell the farm they live on. And so I do think that [students from rural areas] are going to start to have some challenges in those areas. And I worry about that.
Isabel: Absolutely. Thank you again for highlighting these underrepresented groups within higher education. I do really appreciate your thoughts on that. Looking forward, how can colleges or universities collaborate with other stakeholders, such as governments, nonprofit, even private organizations to address some of these issues?
Danielle: One thing is also about to change [is that] if a person has some sort of special circumstance, and they didn't get as much aid, [they can go to their institution and say] “here's what's going on in my life and I can prove it.” Schools can say “Oh great, you're right. Okay, here's more [financial aid].” If that person transfers, schools can say, “I see [the previous institution] gave you this special circumstance determination. We'll take that and now you don't have to redo it.” So that obviously is a huge burden off the student, and it takes away the idea that maybe one school says yes and one school says no. That’s one thing that [institutions can do], but they have to actually do that and not ask the student for extra documentation. But the other interesting thing that even people who have been in the profession a long time don't quite realize is that the federal government actually runs experiments all the time [related to] financial aid. [They’ll say] “Hey, you know what? We're testing out this thing where a person who didn't graduate from high school, [but] they could really benefit from a certain career program. We're going to test out giving them a Pell Grant anyway, even though they didn't graduate from high school and you're going to collect all this data for us and tell us about it, and then we can find out if we want to [give this opportunity] to everybody.” A ton of things that ultimately have expanded access to financial aid have come out of those [experiments]. I'm glad I got to bring this up because this was in my research thesis and I really enjoyed it.
Isabel: I’d love it if you could expand, because I’ve never heard of this.
Danielle: Yeah, it's called Experimental Sites Initiative. [One] issue is that schools, even when they know about [the Experimental Sites Initiative,] are a lot of times really reluctant to participate. The financial aid office might be like, we think this is great. Let's do it. But then the President [of the institution] is like, I'm not seeing the benefit. That's too much administrative work, something like that. Community colleges and for-profit colleges in particular don't really participate in these for various reasons. However, [it’s important to know] what these things look like at different school types because what works for students at Northwestern or Harvard is not necessarily going to work the same as what works for people at College of Lake County. One thing I think that schools need to get better at is interdepartmental [communication.] Saying [from one department,] “Hey, look, I see this really cool thing, can we agree that this might expand access for our students?” [Or also communicating with other institutions saying] hey, wow, we're doing this. I know that I have this colleague over at this other school. They would be interested in this too. Let me go and say, hey, there are no community colleges in this experiment right now. Would your school want to do this?” [For example, they can say] “How can we Northwestern, help you, College Lake County with the resources to participate in this program so we can get good data?”
Isabel: Wow, I feel like this is some insider information, I truly had no idea about that.
Danielle: See, that's the thing. It's not secret. Like, there's nothing secret about it. It's just not [well known.]
Isabel: Interesting. Okay. I'm really, really happy that I had the chance to talk to you today because I definitely am learning something new.
Danielle: And that example of giving Pell grants to people who hadn't graduated from high school, that's a real one that they did some years ago.
Isabel: If you could wave a magic wand and instantly create any higher education policy at any level what policy would you create?
Danielle: I would lower the age for a person to not have to list their parents on the FAFSA. Currently it’s 24. I think that's way too high because there are a lot of people [at ages] 22-23 who haven't lived with their parents in years. And most times people in that situation would otherwise get more [aid] if they didn't have to list their parents. Sometimes [that's not the situation,] but it's still hassle for them to have to go “hey Mom and Dad, I know I haven't lived with you in years, but please give me your tax information. So I think I would lower the age for a person to list their parents on the FAFSA. I don't know exactly to what, but probably something like 21. Just because there are so many students that are living independently, it's very clear that they're paying their own bills and they're the only ones responsible for their finances, but they don't have a kid and then they're not married and they're not any of the other things that makes them independent [on the FAFSA]. So I would change that.
Isabel: How do you envision the future of college access and affordability, and what changes do you hope to see in the coming years?
Danielle: A lot of good is being done. I think we're trending in the right direction, honestly. That might sound really overly optimistic. I'm sure if you asked some of my colleagues they would just disagree with me, to be clear. But I think we're going in the right direction because, despite the change affecting rural students that I just mentioned, they're making a lot of really good changes to the FAFSA as well. They are making the FAFSA simpler. They're adding help text so that someone, for example, knows that they have the option to request a special circumstance. They don't just have to magically know that. And there are a lot of really interesting ways around [addressing issues] that that colleges are trying out. A lot of them are turning to things called LRAPs, which are loan repayment assistance programs. Basically [schools will tell students] "I know you're being asked to borrow money. We're not able to lower our tuition. However, we're so invested in you and we're still so confident 6 about what this degree is going to do for you that if you graduate and you don't make above (whatever amount the school sets) we will give you actual cash to help pay those loans until you get there.” [I’m optimistic because] schools are getting creative in that way and the federal government is actually making some noteworthy changes to the FAFSA itself. [Also,] a lot of schools are getting really good at, finding ways around the fact that undocumented students are not eligible for federal aid. I think it speaks well of how we as an industry are changing and doing our best with limited dollars.
Isabel: I do really appreciate your perspective because a lot of times when we talk about college access and affordability, the sense I get is kind of doom and gloom. I appreciate you repositioning us to recognize there are some positive changes that are being made.