In summary, the article, "Low-income High School Students' Use of the Internet to Access Financial Aid," by Kristen Venegas, discusses the sturggles and lack of opportunities that prevent students from filling out financial aid forms online which is becoming a much more general common practice. The importance of being able to both access these forms online as well as understanding how to complete them online lies in the fact that, "FAFSA applications completed online receive faster decisions about student aid packages than those that are completed on paper." (http://www.nasfaa.org/Annualpubs/Journal/Vol36N3/KristanVenegas.PDF) The problem does not only lie within the access to Web-linked computers, despite their decreasing numbers in schools with high levels of low-income students, but also in the ability to properly use the Internet, access the proper Web sites, etc. According to the article, "Increased number of computers in low-income schools does not guarantee use: if the students are not given time to use them, if students as well as teachers are not properly trained on how to use them," and end up being considered, "engines of inequality" because of these reasons."
Another reason why it is important for these low-income students to be taught about the financial aid online application process is because the financial aid programs are increasingly choosing to use the Internet more and more for reasons such as: to decrease application mistakes, expidite the review and processing of Web-based forms, save materials, postage and processing costs for government and postsecondary institutions, allowing for more money to be dispersed into the aid. While this is all very good, if not given the same opportunitites, the author argues that this process perpetuates the cycle of lack of access for some people and creates advantages for others. She states that "culture plays a role in the acquisition of financial aid knowledge," and labels such culture as, "influences, resources, and expectations affect students' ability and drive to acquire financial aid."
The author discusses the "cultural framework" that families, home environments, peers, school envrionments, and communities have on students' decisions to enroll in or seek funding for higher education. (For my own personal opinion, those who are around parents who have either been college-educated or educated themselves on the process for their children create environments that encourage such applications to be done. Envrionments play a large role in general on almost everything we do.)
6 Barriers these students face in trying to complete online financial aid applications:
1. "low income" status renders the possibility for not owning a computer or having Internet access at home, and thus only relying purely on school resources.
2. Access to Web-linked computers in general for low-income schools.
3. Cultural frameworks such as school, family, peers, etc.
4. Slow Internet Access/problems with freezing computers.
5. Inability to understand the Web sites when they access them.
6. Not being properly trained to use computers and the Internet, if they are given access to use them.
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