The Study of Student Financial Aid System in US Higher Education

Today Chinese higher education has stepped into the stage of massification and an increasing number of students are entitled to benefiting from it. But as the recent financial reforms have converted higher education from originally completely free to all students sharing part of the expenses, the students in economic disadvantage are compelled into a more awkward situation and their rights for higher education are endangered. Under such circumstances, how to ensure this group of students enjoying the same opportunity for higher education as others has become the real concerns of the government and the society. The dissertation will focus on the U.S. federal student aid systems, its history, its present make-up, its operational mechanism and its development trends and try to illustrate the lessons we can draw from it. This paper aims at studying the study of student financial aid system in U.S. Higher Education, its history, its present make-up, its operational mechanism and its development trends and tries to illustrate the lessons we can draw from it. The U.S. experience will offer us useful lessons on how to improve student aid in our country. The study of the student financial aid system in U.S. Higher Education has significant meanings. Theoretically, the study will significantly contribute to the development of comparative higher education study in China. Practically, it will facilitate the reform and improvement of student aid system in our country. As any other complete and complex system, American federal government undergraduate sponsorships have gone through a long course, which is composed of two stages. Before the enforcement of the Higher Education Act of 1965 was the time when various student aid and sponsorships were initially established. After that was the period during which the federal sponsorships were further developed.