Colleges Step Up, Help Students With Extra Financial Aid

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:13:00 GMT

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.

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Colleges Using Creative Solutions to Meet Growing Demand For On-Campus Housing

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:20:00 GMT

Forty percent more upperclassmen requested on-campus housing this year at the University of Missouri than the previous year, creating a housing-accommodation challenge that colleges across the country are facing this fall, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Campuses See Rising Demand for Housing,” August 1, 2008).

This demand for housing is increasing at the same time that many colleges are expanding the number of freshmen who will be competing for the same limited on-campus housing that upperclassmen, many of whom had forgone college dorms for off-campus apartment living, are now also seeking.

Increased Demand for Housing Compounded by Larger Freshmen Classes

This year, the University of Missouri’s freshmen class increased 14 percent over 2007, and the school ended up needing 1,000 more beds than it did in the fall, according to Frankie Minor, the school’s director of residence life.

To help meet the demand, the school opened new dorms, renovated older buildings, leased rooms in two private apartment buildings, and reopened an old residence hall that had been converted to office space.

The need for on-campus housing is so great at the University of Washington, that 5,100 students are living in buildings that were designed to house only 4,100. And as the university prepares for its largest freshmen class ever at 5,600 students — 100 more than last year’s class — the problem may only get worse. To ensure current and new students have adequate housing, the Seattle university plans to add 2,400 beds for both freshmen and upperclassmen in the next 10 to 12 years.

The housing dilemma is similar at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. This year 5,670 returning students will live on campus, some 350 more than last year. The school recently opened a 172-bed apartment complex, but until the addition of 600 more spaces is completed in 2010, students are living in converted lounges and being packed into double rooms that have temporarily been converted into triples.

Educators say the housing shortage may either be a fluke or the beginning of a new trend brought on by rising rent prices off campus, soaring energy costs, and gas prices that have topped $4 per gallon.

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Student Loan Blog : upperclassmen

Colleges Step Up, Help Students With Extra Financial Aid

Colleges Using Creative Solutions to Meet Growing Demand For On-Campus Housing