Many colleges hiked tuition for low-income students. Why did wealthier peers get more aid?
Jon Marcus and Fazil Khan
March 27, 2023
Even in high school, Miguel Agyei worried about how he’d pay for college.
The son of parents who work at a hospital and for UPS, Agyei wanted to go to a school away from his home state of Illinois, but that was too expensive. He instead picked close-by Bradley University and worked during the summer to pay the costs his financial aid didn’t cover.
An athlete who ran track and field, he set the university record in the 60-meter hurdles, but the conference meet that determined who would get athletic scholarships was canceled by Covid. He asked his coaches if there was money to help him buy textbooks, but they said there wasn’t. He had to get help from an advocacy group to pay his rent. To cover his other expenses, he took a job answering phones for a call center for people applying for unemployment benefits.
