Colleges Step Up, Help Students With Extra Financial Aid
If recent data is any indication, families are struggling to come up
with the cash they need to send their children to college, and
schools across the country are doing something to help those who’ve
come up short, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Colleges
Offer Extra Aid to Strapped Students,” Jan. 9, 2009).
During the first few days of the new financial aid season that began
Jan. 1 — the first day college students could submit their FAFSA
(Free Application for Federal Student Aid), the application required
for students seeking federal aid — 40 percent more families over the
previous year had already sought out financial assistance (“Families
Face Fierce Competition for Student Aid: Season Starts With Sharp
Increase in Demand,” Business Wire, Jan. 6, 2009).
“The demand for student aid has been climbing as the recession
batters family budgets, parents’ jobs are eliminated, and self-
employed parents experience business downturns,” said Craig Carroll,
CEO of Student Financial Aid Services, a financial aid advisory
company.
Schools Create New Aid Programs or Beef Up Existing Ones
In response to the growing number of families facing limited options
to pay for college, some schools are offering families an extended
grace period to pay tuition bills, and other schools are meeting the
growing demand for aid by expanding existing financial aid programs
or creating new ones.
At Northern Illinois University, for instance, school administrators
recently introduced the Huskie Advantage, a new aid program that
meets tuition costs not covered by state and federal aid. The
program, which the school will subsidize by shifting financial funds
away from upperclassmen to underclassmen, who usually don’t qualify
for as much federal aid, is only available to freshmen who qualify
for Pell Grants and need-based state grants, according to Brent
Gage, the school’s assistant vice provost for enrollment services.
Agnes Scott College in Georgia also recently announced a new
program, the Agnes Solution, targeted at students who are eligible
for the state’s Hope Scholarship. The school hopes that by providing
qualified students with a $13,500 Agnes Solution scholarship and a
$3,000 grant each year, combined with the $3,000 Hope Scholarship,
the program will be able to cut the cost of attendance almost in
half.
As part of a Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota plan to lower the
cost of attendance for low- and middle-income students to match the
average cost of the nation’s Big Ten universities, the school is
expanding its Brother James Miller Program for Access. The program
originally only covered students who met certain academic
qualifications and whose families made less than $75,000, but due to
the economic downturn, the institution has raised the income
qualification to $100,000, and is currently collecting private funds
so that it may provide aid for the school’s most financially needy
students.