Federal Law Hurts Families With Low- and Middle- Incomes

Under the new 1980 Federal Higher Education Act, many low-and-middle-income families will pay proportionately more to send their children to college than higher-income families, a recent study by the College Scholarship Service of the College Board shows.

The new law will require financial aid officers to replace the current College Board method of determining need with a federal needs analysis system to determine how federal funds should be distributed amongst families of various income levels. The law will take effect in the 1982-1983 school year.

"The system they have adopted will ask for more money from lower income families than the current college scholarship porgram," Martha C. Lyman, director of financial aids at Harvard, said yesterday.

"The net impact on Harvard students shouldn't be too great. I think we have the ability to counteract the negative impact on those families through institutional funds," Lyman said. But she added, "We are terribly lucky to be in a situation to distribute such funds. I would guess that 90 per cent of other colleges don't have any."

The College Scholarship Service estimates that under the new federal system, families earning between $33,000 and $45,000 a year will be able to save $300 to $1300 a year, while families earning between $9000 and $12,000 would have to pay an average of $192 a year, and families earning less than $6000 a year would have to contribute an average of $55 a year.

Under the current system, families in the $9000 to $12,000 range would pay an average of $30, and those earning under $6000 an average of $20.

According to Monday's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, "College Board officials are informally urging their contacts in Congress to consider a substantial revision of the law next spring."

It is currently unclear what effect the Reagan administration will have on the new law.