Technology Conditioning Access to Financial Aid

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Empowering Education: Insights From Research on Writing, Math, Diversity, and Resource Management (Table 20)

Abstract

Applying for and receiving financial aid in the United States is a notoriously difficult process for students and their families to complete. This article adds nuance to this difficulty by closely investigating the technology through which students access aid. Using interviews with students and staff members at a large community college, I ask: How does technology condition students’ access to financial aid? As I conducted this study during the COVID-19 pandemic, the breakdown in financial aid practice caused by the crisis illuminates how the objects required for aid were both taken for granted and took on new meaning during that period. I conclude that students’ income and their access to and familiarity with technology shaped their access to aid.

Author

• Saralyn McKinnon-Crowley, Baylor University