Student Loan Blog : Michael Crow

$17,000 Obama Scholarship to Be Awarded to 1,600 Arizona Students

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:01:00 GMT

Arizona State University officials have decided to rename the school’s largest financial aid program after President Barack Obama in honor of his commencement address to ASU’s 2009 graduating class, reports The Arizona Republic (“1,600 ASU Freshmen Will Qualify for Obama Scholarship,” May 7, 2009).

Approximately 1,600 incoming ASU freshmen could now qualify for an award under the President Barack Obama Scholars Program, after the school increased the qualifying family income from $25,000 to $60,000. Worth up to $17,000, the need-based scholarship will cover tuition, fees, books, and room and board and will require recipients to take on a work-study job on campus.

The decision to rename the scholarship program came shortly after ASU began receiving negative publicity for not choosing to award President Obama with an honorary degree. ASU President Michael Crow apologized for the stir created by the university’s controversial decision but stood by his adherence to the school’s policy, which doesn’t allow for honorary degrees to be awarded to sitting politicians.

Crow says that the scholars program meets Obama’s goal of allowing more students to attend college. He said, “This is an important commitment on our part to make certain (that) students still have access to the universities.”

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State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University who seven years ago promised to make ASU “The New American University” and to grow the school’s enrollment to 100,000 students by 2020, could see his plans go unfulfilled because of state budget cuts, reports The New York Times (“State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions,” March 17, 2009).

Since last June, ASU has lost $88 million in state funding, which amounts to 18 percent of the university’s base budget.

“The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered American University,” the Arizona school’s student newspaper editorialized last month after ASU announced it would be eliminating more than 500 jobs, closing 48 programs and requiring remaining employees to take 10 to 15 days of unpaid leave this spring.

While ASU students said they believe school president Michael Crow is doing his best to protect them from further funding cuts, they also said the state’s budget cuts will negatively affect the quality of their education.

ASU Not Alone, Colleges Struggling Nationwide

Public colleges across the country are experiencing layoffs, salary freezes, and even enrollment reductions as they grapple with shrinking state funding in the current recession.

The University of Florida recently eliminated 430 faculty and staff positions, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently laid off around 100 employees, and the University of Vermont has eliminated 16 positions, left 22 faculty positions vacant, and frozen the salaries of certain staff, The New York Times reports.

And California’s higher education system, which serves 3.3 million students — nearly 20 percent of college student nationwide — is among the nation’s college systems hardest hit by this recession. Both the University of California system and the California State University system have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding and have been forced to shrink their enrollment numbers.

“What’s happening, everywhere, is what’s happening to Michael Crow,” said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an organization that studies college spending. “The trend line is states disinvesting in higher education.”

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Proposed Budget Cuts Leave Arizona Universities Reeling

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:44:00 GMT

Arizona’s three state universities are considering making drastic budget cuts, including shutting down campuses and eliminating degree programs, as the colleges face a 30-percent reduction in state aid — a projected loss of more than $300 million for all three public universities.

Proposed budget cuts to the state’s university system come as Arizona grapples with a $3 billion-budget deficit this fiscal year and next, reports the East Valley Tribune (“Crow: Cuts Could Close ASU Polytechnic,” Jan. 21, 2009).

If the proposed budget cuts are approved, Arizona State University could lose $320 million over the next two years and Northern Arizona University nearly $50 million, while the University of Arizona stands to lose $103 million in state funds just this year.

The schools, which have already implemented budget reductions precipitated by the economic downturn, are scrambling to find new ways to further slash their already strained budgets.

ASU is considering laying off 2,500 employees, doubling tuition, and shutting down one, or possibly two, of its campuses.

“We could eliminate the nursing school, journalism school, the law school, and the engineering school and still not meet these cuts,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “It’s hard for people to understand the scale.”

“I’m a bit shell-shocked,” said NAU President John Haeger in a university press release. “We have not even modeled a budget for cuts of this magnitude.”

Haeger says the reductions at NAU won’t be possible without fee increases, fewer class offerings, and larger class sizes, as well as work furloughs, increased workloads for employees, and possible staff layoffs.

While it is not known how University of Arizona President Robert Shelton will address cuts the university needs to make, he says the school is exploring money-generating options, including accepting a larger number of out-of-state students who pay higher tuition and fees than in-state students.

Shelton says he agrees that cuts to higher education are needed, but he maintains that the type of reductions the state legislature is asking for “are so extreme that they would absolutely cripple higher education in our state.”

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