Students get grants back
Hard work does pay off-big time.
The efforts of USU students resulted in 70 USU students and many others nationwide getting a $4,000 grant.
“I couldn’t be more please with the results,” said John Sapp, a senior in environmental engineering who spearheaded efforts to get the grant money.
Earlier this year about 150 students had the Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent grant awarded to them, only to have it taken away two weeks later. The U.S. Department of Education said some students could not receive the grants because they had more than 120 credits, even though some majors, especially engineering, have a credit requirement of more than 120 credits.
Sapp said that was what put him in action. Sapp, and fellow student Brandon Struthers, began to try and change what they saw as a ridiculous rule.
E-mails to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Bill Frist (D-Tenn.), the author of the grant proposal, got responses and Bishop’s office called and e-mailed the Department of Education, Sapp said. He said he also talked to a representative from the Department of Education and worked to get the word out through the media.
“I just saw it as an unfair ruling and something needed to be done,” Sapp said. ” A lot of times people don’t know what to do. What I knew how to do was talk to a lot of people, so that’s what I did.”
Associate Director of Financial Aid Steve Sharp said it was USU students that got the ruling changed. The problem with the grants was that the legislation went through three times more quickly than usual and “just didn’t have time to develop it”, so the bugs weren’t worked out, Sharp said.
“We were the ones out there in front,” he said. ” It was because we gave this grant an then took it away. I’m glad we did that because if we’d awarded it a month later, the students would not really have known the injustice of it.”
Because of the long hours put in by Sapp, Struthers and many other students who wrote to politicians, the Department of Education changed their ruling to create the cap at the credit requirement for the major, and does not count credits from AP classes, CLEP tests, foreign language tests and concurrent enrollment, Sharp said.
“I’m pretty happy about what’s happened and the speed they changed the ruling,” Sapp said.
Sharp said only half of the students had the grant reinstated because if they take too long to finish the major, have transferred from another major or completed classes somewhere else and have transfer credits, they aren’t eligible to receive it. Students who have concerns about credits being counted that should not have been should contact Financial Aid.
It is expected that the ruling will remain a permanent part of the bill until it comes up for review in two years, Sapp said.
While funding has been allocated for five years worth of the SMART grant, Sharp said there are still problems with the system and he is working to create reasonable solutions.
While all the problems might not be fixed, Sharp said he is impressed with the work of USU students.
“Thank you to those students who did actually write. We’d like more student to do that on other issues,” he said. “The fact that students at USU contacted the Senator and Department of Education gave 70 students here and countless others nationwide the opportunity to get this grant.”