A&M PROFESSOR BELIEVES FINANCIAL DISPERSEMENT NEEDS REVISITING

  

Dr. Lori Taylor, director of the Texas A&M Bush School’s Mosbacher Institute for Trade Economics and Public Policy believes that the way financial aid is dispersed need to be reexamined.

Taylor believes that the 50 year old method of distributing the funds is ineffective and keeps the money out of the hand of the ones that need it the most.

Citing the fact that the cost of living in Arkansas, which has one of the lowest cost of living, is not the same as the cost of living in New York, where it has one of the highest cost of living.

According to Numbeo.com, a family moving to New York from Texas would see a large increase in rent of more than 200%.

According to Jeannie McGuire, "In Bryan-College Station she would need to make $17 an hour to make expenses with no non-cash benefits or needs $33,000 a year to pay for expenses," she said. "When you look at our job market there are 62 percent of jobs that don't pay enough in B-CS. You really have to go deep inside what this article is saying to see how it impacts the economy of B-CS." 

Dr. Lori Taylor, director of the Bush School's Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics and Public Policy indicates that when the cost of living is taken into account, the government would be better able to stop sending large amounts of money to states where poverty rates have been overestimated.

Since anti-poverty programs were established under President Lyndon B Johnson, poverty rates have remained pretty much stead, improving only about 2.8 percent in the past 50 years.