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The majority (89.6%) of Columbia’s students received scholarship money to attend the college in Fall 2023, up slightly from the previous year.
The average unrestricted scholarship award in Fall 2023, the last semester data was available, was $7,476 per student, according to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. For Fall 2022, 88% of all students received scholarships from the college with an average of a scholarship package of $7,317, the Chronicle previously reported.
In all, Columbia offered $14,795 per student in financial aid in Fall 2023. About half (48.8%) of Columbia’s 6,529 students also received federal financial assistance. Even as tuition has increased — 5% each year the last two years — financial assistance has kept pace, meaning the majority of Columbia students still pay only about half of the full cost to attend.
“One of the things that makes Columbia special is its commitment to fostering a diverse student body, but tuition costs remain a significant barrier for many students,” said Dave Palazzolo, vice president of finance for the Student Government Association. “Financial assistance is one of the most effective ways the college can address this challenge, making it essential to attracting and retaining talented students,” Palazzolo said.
The deadline for current students to apply for many scholarships at Columbia is Feb. 1, the Saturday after the first week of spring classes.
The 2025-26 FAFSA must be submitted by then for consideration of most internal scholarships.
Columbia offers around 135 internal scholarships, according to their online list, with 92.6% of students receiving an amount from these, which averages anywhere from $2,194 to $7,176 depending on the type.
Columbia’s annual fundraising gala for the Persistence Scholarship has raised about $1.5 million the last two years, the Chronicle previously reported.
“Events like Columbia’s recent Gala are crucial for raising funds for scholarships, and at SGA, we’ve been focused on promoting awareness to ensure students know how to access and apply for these opportunities,” said Palazzolo, a junior film and television major.
The process of finding and applying for scholarships can nonetheless be overwhelming for some students.
“The only thing that was definitely a bit challenging was trying to actually find the information on the scholarships,” said Oliver Bush, a sophomore sound design major. “Quite a lot of those scholarships are quite specific in terms of who can actually apply.”
According to the National Student Financial Wellness Study, students do have enough access to financial literacy resources, but not many take the initiative to access it. The study stated 37.3% of students surveyed had met with a financial counselor in order to better their future through knowledge.
Due to the everyday cost of attendance, 71% of students apply for financial aid through FAFSA, with 56% of college students receiving grants nationwide according to The Education Data Initiative. The percentage of students who accept financial aid in Illinois has grown by 1.15% every year.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, project advisor for Columbia’s TRIO Student Support Services, which offers academic and financial support to income-eligible, first-generation and disabled students at Columbia, said that the school offers material on external scholarship, as well as financial literacy.
“Columbia actually provides really great resources for external scholarships that are listed on their website, and just applying for all, using those websites to apply,” Rodriguez said. “Chicago themselves also has scholarships specifically for college students.”
While a large number of students in the U.S. receive federal aid, professor of graduate education at the University of Pennsylvania Laura Perna said there are still barriers in gaining aid, citing students’ lack of awareness, financial literacy, submitting applications and asking for help when necessary as the main problems.
“At one level, if people are not aware of financial aid opportunities, they may decide that it’s just too expensive, and they can’t pay the cost, and they don’t go,” Perna said. “We know that there are lots and lots of benefits that come with going to college and finishing — the whole spectrum of higher earnings, higher employment rates, better health, longer lives — a whole bunch of individual benefits.”
Technical issues and delays with the rollout of a new federal student aid application last year caused issues for students and institutions trying to award them funding.
Students in several cities, including Chicago, tested out the application system this fall before the FAFSA application went live on Dec. 1. The Department of Education officials is hoping to avoid the problems that plagued the process last year.
First-year animation major Patrick Culak said FAFSA is an overall frustrating and degrading process.
“I have yet to take out a student loan but, you know, the FAFSA doesn’t cover everything,” said Culak.
According to the Education Data Initiative, the state of Illinois is the ninth highest spender of financial aid, dishing out $443.7M so far.
Perna, who is also the vice provost for faculty in the University of Pennsylvania’s Policy, Organizations, Leadership and Systems Division, said that, while costs are rising, the difference between sticker price and aid has remained more or less unmoved.
“The sticker price minus grant aid has remained relatively unchanged over the past several years and there’s a lot of attention to the rise in the sticker price,” said Perna. “But really what that net price is on average, what people are paying hasn’t had that same level of change.”
Students expressed concern about the large emphasis many forms of aid, including the FAFSA, place on financial need. Danielle Lang, a first-year musical theatre major, said that a certain income does not equal the ability to pay for school.
“Income is always a weird spot; just because your family has this income doesn’t mean that you’re able to just pay for everything,” said Lang.
Not only was first-year animation major Aubrey Cruz-Pineda concerned with the lack of financial information provided to them, but as a Massachusetts citizen attending an Illinois school, their options for external scholarships are whittled down due to the recurring requisite of in-state residence, remarking that what they were awarded from the FAFSA was insufficient.
“I’m out of state, so financial help is not the greatest, so I get to rely on the government for help, and that is not good,” said Cruz-Pineda.
Perna said that higher education institutions have an incentive to aid students with financial needs and they seem to remain committed to this responsibility.
“There’s a lot of attention to rises in those costs and also, at the same time, there has been a commitment, from some entities that care about helping people go to college to really make grant aid available to help people pay the cost,” said Perna.
In 2020, the Department of Education vowed to overhaul its FAFSA system, which finally took place in winter 2023. However, instead of being a more helpful system, the new FAFSA application was said to be glitchy and caused a large drop in application numbers, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Applications were also delayed from 90 days to over a year and 74% of calls, or 4.0 million, went unanswered.
“FAFSA was a hot mess,” Lang said. “The only other person that I was able to talk to about it during the process of applying was my mom, and it’s changed so much since [she last filled it out].”
Perna said that the FAFSA is the most important and underused resource for financial aid, even when it is a challenging process.
“For need-based financial aid, completing the FAFSA is really, really important. It’s especially challenging right now to communicate to folks, given the challenges with the rollout of the new FAFSA over the past academic year,” said Perna.
The 2025-2026 FAFSA is due on June 30, 2026, according to an infographic from the Department of Education. So far, there have been less issues reported since the rollout of the new form this month.
Perna also said an important part of being able to be given aid is watching deadlines while Rodriguez said students need to apply to scholarships consistently and as early as possible.
“Don’t delay, because some scholarships, especially the MAP Grant through Illinois, is based on a first come, first serve basis,” Rodriguez said. “Be consistently looking throughout the year, because you never know when scholarships might pop up. I think it’s better to apply to more than just a limited few, because there are more opportunities.”
Copy edited by Trinity Balboa
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