The Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, a family foundation that researches higher education, found that only 57 percent of community-college main campuses across the country are transit accessible — meaning just under 600 institutions are not within walking distance of public transportation. The foundation is building maps that chart transit stops near all branch and satellite campuses for community and technical colleges in each state.

In an unusually quick turnaround for federal politics, a report published in May inspired the introduction of bipartisan legislation just this month that would improve access to public transportation for college students, an investment that is widely supported by higher education advocates.

It all began in January, when researchers at the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation set out to answer the question “Do students need a car to attend community college?” What they found captured the attention of lawmakers: only 57 percent of primary community college campuses are within half a mile of a transit stop, even though 99 percent of community college students live off campus. Further, 25 percent of those campuses that aren’t accessible could be made accessible simply by extending an existing transit line.

“What you’re talking about is adding a transit stop to a route that already exists—building one bus shelter or changing the route a little bit,” said Abigail Seldin, CEO of the foundation. “It’s having a bus go two more miles down the road. From an infrastructure standpoint, that’s just so easy. It’s right there.”

NEW TOOLKIT TO COMBAT SEX TRAFFICKING AT MASSAGE SCHOOLS: The Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation is announcing this morning a new effort to help state regulators identify sex trafficking at massage therapy schools. The group is awarding a grant to the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards to jointly produce a toolkit for state authorizers of massage schools.

— A report by the foundation earlier this year and a USA Today investigation this summer highlighted problems with how state regulators oversee or respond to suspicions that massage schools may be linked to sex trafficking or prostitution. A congressional oversight panel is examining the issue, and the Education Department has said it plans to review an accrediting agency that approved a college that a state regulator said may have ties to prostitution.

— "We've always said we don't expect authorizers to act as SVU detectives, but nor should they be left ill-equipped and under-resourced to address what we know is happening across the country,” Abigail Seldin, the foundation’s CEO, said in a statement announcing the grant. The toolkit is expected to launch in December.

Read the full piece on Politico.

“‘Not enough students know you can appeal the financial aid you've been offered,’ explains Abigail Seldin, who founded a free tool called SwiftStudent that helps students through the process of asking for additional funds. The application form for federal student aid, known as the FAFSA, relies on tax data from two years ago. A lot can change in that time — especially today, with high unemployment and a tanked economy.

“‘Because of this, most schools have built-in an appeals process, but it's complicated and happens at the school level. ‘So much of our financial aid process is a formal process,’ says Seldin. ‘Students who may not feel comfortable asking for help, who are first-generation, are less likely to go reach out and ask for more resources, let alone resources that they don't even know exist.’

“She says she's hoping the SwiftStudent tool will make the process more transparent, especially as families struggle with job losses, reduced hours and pay cuts and even evictions related to the pandemic.”

View the full article in NPR.

“Abigail Seldin, along with a company called FormSwift, has created a free offering called SwiftStudent that helps users draft a formal financial aid appeal letter and coaches them through writing one efficiently and effectively.”

View the full article in The New York Times.

“A new online tool, SwiftStudent, offers financial aid offices’ advice for students appealing for financial aid, said Abigail Seldin, CEO of the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, which created the tool.

“‘Our goal is to give students the information they need to advocate for themselves,’ she said.”

View the full article in Bloomberg.

“A non-profit foundation today is releasing a new online tool that helps college students petition their institutions for additional financial aid based on changes to their circumstances such as a job loss or medical crisis.

The new website, SwiftStudent, will guide college students on how to file appeals of their financial aid awards using more than a dozen different types of templates.

The tool was developed by the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation with the backing of a range of groups involved in college financial aid issues, including the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators, the National College Attainment Network and Reach Higher, the higher education initiative started by former first lady Michelle Obama.”

View the full article in Politico Pro.

“Financial-aid awards land with the thud of finality. Any student peering at a screen full of jargon and financial figures might wonder how to even go about asking a college to reconsider its offer.

“A new online tool called SwiftStudent was designed to help them do that. The free service, available to any student receiving federal aid, leads users through the ins and outs of requesting aid adjustments. The website provides appeal-letter templates for various situations. Say, a student loses housing. Or a medical crisis hits. Or a parent gets laid off. Many families are experiencing such hardships because of the Covid-19 crisis.

“The Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation created the tool with help from students, financial-aid officers, and college counselors, as well as from experts at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the National College Attainment Network, and the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, among several other organizations.”

View the full article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Whether they’ve just been accepted or are heading into another year, college students may soon have trouble paying for school, as the novel coronavirus takes a toll on family finances. Colleges and universities can adjust financial aid awards, but few students are aware of the option, and the process can be daunting.

A digital platform unveiled Wednesday by the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation aims to take the guesswork out of financial aid appeals. The free tool, dubbed SwiftStudent, guides students through requesting more funding, explaining eligibility, the documents applicants need and the kinds of appeals. It provides templates, powered by software company FormSwift, that let users plug in their information to generate a letter for submission to their school’s financial aid office.

“Students are going to be receiving financial aid offers from schools based on pre-pandemic data. It’s hard to imagine that data reflect their current financial situation,” said Abigail Seldin, who heads the foundation. “There’s a process in place to go back to the school and say, ‘I’m a single parent and lost my job, but I want to continue next semester. How can you help me?’ We’re trying to make it easier.”

By now, most students have already filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which the government and colleges use to determine need-based and some merit-based aid. But a lot could have changed since they submitted the form, which relies on tax data from two years ago.

Read more in The Washington Post.

Whether they’ve just been accepted or are heading into another year, college students may soon have trouble paying for school, as the novel coronavirus takes a toll on family finances. Colleges and universities can adjust financial aid awards, but few students are aware of the option, and the process can be daunting.

A digital platform unveiled Wednesday by the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation aims to take the guesswork out of financial aid appeals. The free tool, dubbed SwiftStudent, guides students through requesting more funding, explaining eligibility, the documents applicants need and the kinds of appeals. It provides templates, powered by software company FormSwift, that let users plug in their information to generate a letter for submission to their school’s financial aid office.

“Students are going to be receiving financial aid offers from schools based on pre-pandemic data. It’s hard to imagine that data reflect their current financial situation,” said Abigail Seldin, who heads the foundation. “There’s a process in place to go back to the school and say, ‘I’m a single parent and lost my job, but I want to continue next semester. How can you help me?’ We’re trying to make it easier.”

By now, most students have already filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which the government and colleges use to determine need-based and some merit-based aid. But a lot could have changed since they submitted the form, which relies on tax data from two years ago.

Read more in The Washington Post.

“Few college students know that they can request changes to their college financial aid packages. The term financial aid appeal doesn’t even appear in the glossary of the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid website. A recent GAO report found that two-thirds of all institutions do not inform students that they can appeal for a dependent care allowance, which permits students with children to request financial aid to cover childcare during school-related activities. Today, more than 25 percent of all college students have a dependent child.

Students can appeal their financial packages for a number of reasons, and the Department of Education provides guidance to financial aid counselors annually. At the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, we wanted to provide a similar resource for the 18.8 million Americans who apply for college financial aid each year. For the past six months, we have collaborated closely with 18 leading higher education associations, advocacy organizations, and colleges to build SwiftStudent: a new free, digital resource that helps students request changes to their college financial aid packages.”

Read more in Forbes.

“There is growing evidence that athletic scholarships fall short of the rising costs of attending college, as do most other scholarships. Difficulty paying their bills reduces the odds that student-athletes will graduate from college, especially those from families without wealth. Just over 55% of black male student-athletes graduate within six years, compared with 60% of all black undergraduate men, 69.3% of all student-athletes and 76.3% of all undergraduate students.

Last week, California Governor Newsom signed a law that will allow student-athletes the opportunity to earn money from the time and talent they invest in school sports. If the law survives the various legal challenges ahead, student-athletes will be able to seek compensation for the use of their images — their personal brands — and engage agents to represent them in the marketplace. In an interview with The New York Times, Governor Newsom noted, “Every single student in the university can market their name, image and likeness; they can go and get a YouTube channel, and they can monetize that…The only group that can’t are athletes. Why is that?”

Read more on Salon.com.

Adjusting the COA for all kinds of students, from student-athletes to the homeless -- which financial aid offices can do whenever they choose -- would raise the limit on what these students can borrow to support themselves during their college years.

Skeptics will assail this proposal as dangerous, noting that higher COA would allow students to borrow ruinous amounts of money, far beyond the actual out-of-pocket cost of attending a given institution. Yet, the COA of most institutions -- largely unregulated and generally unaudited -- already exceeds what students can afford.

Even with available grant aid, 95% of institutions are too expensive for students with the greatest need. A reconsideration of COA to reflect the reality faced by today's students -- Division I athletes, student-parents, Pell recipients, homeless students and others -- would allow institutions to recognize the needs and challenges faced by different kinds of students in a tangible way that improves their odds of completing college. After all, fewer than 60% of college students make it all the way to graduation.

Read more in CNN.

“All this noise and stress about what happens at the most selective 50 schools in the U.S. distracts from the critical issues at the other 3,000-plus colleges and universities — where most Americans are educated. For these college-bound students, what matters most is whether a college offers a good quality, high value education at a reasonable price. A good college is one that can take any minimally qualified student and help them learn. Their missions focus on the communities they serve, the students they teach — not future alumni whose donations they plan to collect. The estimated lifetime earnings bump from a college degree is a million dollars over a career. For many, attaining an affordable degree is their best shot at the middle class.”

Read more in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Making college not only more affordable but also actually free for everyone has been the subject of much recent debate in Washington, in the national news and on the presidential campaign trail. While a wonderful concept in theory, such a proposal would be all but impossible in practice, given today’s political climate and the massive growth in government spending that a truly free college plan would require. What’s more, these ideas distract from the work we can and should be doing to strengthen an existing federal program that already makes college free, or mostly free, for many low-income students: the Pell Grant.

With a current maximum award of $5,775, Pell Grants cover virtually full freight at most community colleges and, when combined with need and merit-based institutional aid, can make a sizable dent in the bill at most public four-year schools, too. But while more than eight million low-income students used some form of the program last year alone, millions more never even knew it was an option.

That disconnect is troubling for many reasons, not least of all because it means our poorest students are leaving money on the table. And in some cases, the perceived lack of affordable options could deter them from applying to college at all.

Read more in Inside Higher Ed.

“At College Abacus, we are closing the gap between legislation – and its goals – and the actual needs of students, parents, and counselors around the United States. We are taking on the task of aggregating the net price calculators into a single, student-friendly tool. With the help of a grant provided by the Gates Foundation’s College Knowledge Challenge, we expect College Abacus to expand from its current group of 4,000+ schools to include all US colleges and universities by September 2013.

Given the 1 trillion dollar student loan crisis, students need help identifying colleges that they can afford. The College Scorecard may have stimulated conversation on this critical issue, but it is unlikely to serve our most vulnerable students in their pursuit of affordable higher education.”

Read more in Inside Higher Ed.