Portland State University Alumni News Spring 1985 Inside PSU takes to the air I 2 High·flying TV commercial launches campaign to raise PSU's profile Old friends team up for youth I 5 Gladys McCoy (,67 MSW) and Bonnie Neal ('71) used to share babysitting, now an office A Summer Session Sampler I & Choose from over 500 courses and two dozen foreign professors this summer From CPA to refugee worker I 7 Dustine Davidson ('69) has found a way to combine business, humanitarian interests Coaster comes home I 8-9 It was a tough decision, but Jack Featheringill has brought his summer theater to the city "Your Turn" I 2 AlumNotes I 4 Foundation News I 12 Campus News I 13-14 Calendar I 15 On the cover: PSU theater ar15 student Mary Kadderly steps from helicopter owned and chauffeured by C. Norm Winningstad (,73 MBA) in TV spot taped on PSU campus and aired on prime time local television. See story on page lWo. tivc The cost of college in the '80s By Bob Mullin Robin Morris was a case in point. Twenty-four years old, the mother of two small daughters, and in the process of getting a divorce. Not surprisingly, she was broke. "I had always wanted to go to college," Robin remembers. "I thought it was unlikely I could ever go - I had no resources available to me. But I happened to have a good friend who kept telling me to go into the financial aid office and see what they could do." Reluctant at first, Robin finally visited the office in 1980 and, to her pleasant surprise, found that through a combination of assistance programs - grants, loans and work study - she would be able to enroll at Portland State as an undergraduate. "I moved into PSU student housing which allows children," she says. "I sold my car and my appliances to do it. I had no transportation so that ruled out transportation costs. After six months I was able to leave my children at the (Helen Gordon) child care center, which reduced my child care expenses." Her grades were sporadic during the first year of adjustment, Robin remembers, but then "things stabilized." By the time she earned her bachelor's degree in 1984, she had come within a fraction of a grade point of graduating with honors. John Anderson, director of Financial Aid at PSU, was so impressed with Robin's achievements that he nominated her for the student advisory committee to the College Scholarship Service. She was flown to New York City several times a year to help assess the financial aid needs of college students nationally. "Within six months they recognized that she was exceptional," says Anderson, "and asked her if she would be one of two student members on the executive committee for the College Entrance Examination Board. " She currently is serving her second of three years in both positions from her new home in Amherst, Mass., where she is seeking a doctorate in cognitive psychology research at the University of Massachusetts. Financial aid made it possible "None of this would have been possible without financial aid," says Anderson. "Our aid programs are especially helpful to the so-called nontraditional students such as Robin. In fact, because of its urban location, Since Sputnik was launched, the federal government has made college accessible to nearly anyone with the desire and ability to attend. But rising costs and possible cutbacks in financi.al aid may limit the choices. Portland State serves a unique function in that more than any other institution in the state system it can proVide financial assistance to such students - for example, divorced women with dependent children who need to come back to get a degree 50 they have job skills. We currently are assisting 258 such women." Who are the PSU students on financial aid? Statistics compiled in Anderson's office provide a picture: - Two of every three of them are independent of parents for their support. -Of those still dependent on parents for support, 32 percent come from families with incomes of less than $15,000 a year. -Of those who are independent, 76 percent have annual incomes of less than $5,000 a year. -Thirty-three percent of the independent aid recipients are married andlor have dependent children, and 12.8 percent are unmarried and have dependent children. -The grade point average of aid recipients, according to Anderson, "is not significantly different" from the GPA of the student body at large. In the spring of 1984, undergraduate males receiving aid averaged 2.751 compared to 2.769 for undergraduate males overall, while undergraduate females receiving aid averaged 2.963 compared to 3.012 for undergraduate females overall. Keeping up with Sputnik In all, more than half Portland State's student body depends on aid of some sort to attend school, says Anderson. Grants and scholarships, from state, federal and private sources, account for 38 percent of the aid money awarded; low-interest federal loans, many of which do not have to be repaid until graduation, account for 50 percent; and the federal College Work Study program, which subsidizes wages for working aid recipients, accounts for the other 12 percent. Anderson says the amount of aid distributed has grown over the years, but the kind of aid given is changing. "Grant assistance has not grown at the rate loan assistance has grown," he says. "So we have more students borrowing more money than ever before. In a sense, we're creating a generation of debtors." Continued on p. 3 1
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz