Federal govt. may decrease student grants
In order to reduce national debt, the federal government is developing a plan to cut funding for many student-aid programs, including the Pell Grant, which is provided to students based on need, said Steve Sharp, USU’s director of Financial Aid.
Jared Elton, a student at USU who currently receives a Pell Grant said, “It makes me worry because I count on (Pell Grants) to pay for things. It’s helpful because I don’t need to worry so much about paying for food, rent, working a full time job, or relying on my parents … I can just focus on my studies which is what I need to be doing at this point in my life.”
Currently, the USU Financial Aid Office has record of 8,451 students receiving benefits from the Pell Grant program presently, which is 562 more than the previous year. With the substantial increase in demand for student aid, the government is not able to live up to its previous commitments to provide any eligible student with financial aid, especially as it has not yet formulated a budget for the current year, Sharp said.
In order to compensate for the unexpected costs, federal administration has been working on a plan to renovate the student financial aid budget which will likely mean cutting funding for many major financial aid programs.
President Barack Obama has already made two basic proposals to Congress in efforts to preserve the original Pell Grant: to cut all subsidies to graduate student loans, and to cut smaller financial aid programs. Sharp said these programs could include the TEACH Grant, which pays an education major’s way through school granted they work for up to five years after graduation. The newly established year-round Pell Grant has ended up costing the government about eight times more than expected and is not bringing about the desired results, which is to provide financial aid for the summer semesters and help students graduate earlier. USU’s $300,000 supplementary LEAP grant has already been cut.
“Of course we’re not keen on any reduction in student benefits, but if we’re going to have cuts, those are the cuts that I would make.” said Sharp
Congress’ proposals, some of which have already been rejected by the U.S. Senate, include a cut of about 15 percent of the Pell Grant budget, which would reduce each full reward by $475, Sharp said. They have also proposed to make the application criteria more exclusive in order to reduce the amount of eligible students. In addition, the federal government proposed a $60 billion cut for the current fiscal year which would greatly minimize the grant budget for the summer semester and following. In that case, they would require some students to return a portion of the aid that has already been given out.
Concerning this scenario, Sharp said, “It has happened in the past they we have had to ask for money back … so we are making tentative awards based on this current year’s Pell table amounts but warning students that there is a chance that they will be reduced. I don’t think that there is any real chance of that happening. And that’s why we’re willing to make these awards we are going to make.”
Although it is possible that some of Congress’ proposals will pass, both the Senate and Obama have already rejected many of their ideas.
The decisions to make these cuts have taken much longer than originally intended.
On March 2, Obama released a public statement that said, “This agreement should be bipartisan, it should be free of any party’s social or political agenda, and it should be reached without delay.”
Originally, legislation regarding the Pell Grant funding decrease was intended to be decided upon by March 18, but the Senate passed a continuing resolution bill to re-extend the deadline to April 8.
“We need to know so students can plan not only for next fall, but also for the summer,” Sharp said. “We were hoping that that they would have the final word the first time they (extended the deadline). We don’t know how many times they’re going to keep kicking the can down the road.”
– kevin.mitchell@aggiemail.usu.edu