Students lose grant money
Approximately 150 USU students were awarded $4,000 grants a month ago – only to learn a week before school started that they won’t be receiving them.
About 450 students were told that they would be receiving the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) grant, but due to a technicality in the U.S. Department of Education guidelines for the grant, 150 of the SMART grants were rescinded.
Associate Director of Financial Aid Steve Sharp said schools were originally told the grants were meant for students in their third and fourth academic years majoring in mathematics, engineering, the sciences and languages deemed important to national security. The problem came, Sharp said, when – after USU had already awarded the grants – Utah schools learned from the U.S. Department of Education that a fourth academic year was being defined as students between 90 and 120 credits.
It was this definition that took away the SMART grant for environmental engineering senior John Sapp.
“My program has a 126-credit minimum,” Sapp said. “I am in the fourth academic year of my program, but I have 125 credits, so I was ineligible by the Department of Education’s definition.”
Sapp said this problem affects students nationwide if their degree requires more than 120 credits.
“We wish Congress had not been so hasty in drafting this or in the time frame they gave us to implement it,” Sharp said. “Usually, Congress gives the Department of Education a year to make the regulations for the grant, but in this case, the Department of Education had three months.”
Sharp said Financial Aid protested the decision to define fourth year as not more than 120 credits, but the Department of Education chose “a more restrictive definition.”
“A number of students were understandably upset,” Sharp said.
Sapp said he contacted Congressman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) from Utah about the SMART grants and wrote to Tennessee Senator Bill (R) Frist , who drafted the proposal for Congress.
“If it was just me, I probably wouldn’t have done anything, but it was 150 other people. Even if the rule doesn’t get changed until next year, it will be well worth the effort,” Sapp said.
Sapp said he expects to receive the decision this week from the Department of Education, which met on Monday to discuss the issue, but that he hasn’t met much opposition from them.
Sharp said, “I think it had more impact because the students did the contacting. They contacted the media and it’s made a difference. I’m happy they took the initiative to do this. It should be an issue.”
Despite this, Sharp said it was possible but almost unprecedented for the Department of Education to reverse their decision.
“I have a wife and three kids,” Sapp said. “And I hadn’t made preparations to get other money.”