Access to higher education is always a serious and difficult problem for those low socio-economic people. Federal, government, and some institution have taken efforts to make supports or policies, in order to improve the accessibility or quality of higher education. Through critical analyses, some programs or policies for achieving accessible higher education are not quite effective.
The World Bank (1994) illustrated how important the higher education is to the whole society, but the higher education was in crisis, especially for the lower socio-economic people (the World Bank, 1994, p.15-16). To solve the higher education’s crisis, It agreed to diversify the relevant institutions which can serve the higher education, and their serving commissions (the World Bank, 1994, p.28-33). Moreover, funding institutions should be clearly differentiated so that they could offer appropriate help to those in need. Take the allocation of resources as example, the World Bank (1994) told the institutions that all the resources should be allocated efficiently to the people who need it (the World Bank, 1994, p.50-54). And it also point out that the government had to recognize its role in helping higher education clearly so that it can work out a proper plan, practice the plan and supervise the behavior of public institutions (the World Bank, 1994, p.56-65). Surprisingly, the World Bank (1994) showed the society what it should do for the higher education, instead of just offering advices to the other institution. It proposed that the World Bank should learn itself from experience and conduct reforming and improvement plan (the World Bank, 1994, p.82-90). The World Bank (1994) analyzed the whole situation concisely, and worked out a comprehensive plan accordingly. Both the government and all the institution, including itself, should try hard to help the minority out of crisis. Facing with this serious problem, the World Bank (1994) knew and understood what it could do.
The DIANE Publishing Company (1995) wrote a letter to the Department of Education offering figures and research results in order to ask the Congress to restructure student aid for the low-income student. In this letter, it suggested that loan aid would cause two big problems, including the increasing cost of colleges and the decreasing opportunities for low-income students to stay in colleges (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.4-5). It was a concise and convincing analysis of bad influences caused by the loan aid. After that, the company showed a statistic result of its research, which could prove that grants aid act more effectively than loan aid in decreasing the dropout rate of low-income students (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.7). What is more, the later discussion of the financial aid directors and the interviews of specific students also fit the statistic result (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.8). With the purpose of persuading the Congress to restructure the college aid, the company worked out and introduced a unique pilot frontloading program accordingly (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.9). Besides, it tried to tell the implementation of this program and its own evaluation result (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.9). Although this proposal letter was not agreed by the Department of Education at once ultimately, it was a completed and perfect suggestion that the officials appreciated this letter and approved its opinions (The DIANE Publishing Company, 1995, p.11). If this proposal can give more suggestions to more practicing policies or programs for the low-income students, it would greatly improve the higher education.
