You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Financial Aid’ category.
A bill in the Arizona legislature would bar the state’s university system from providing scholarships that reduced out-of-pocket tuition to less than $2000 a year.
Republican John Kavanaugh says that keeping tuition low creates “perverse incentives” for students to enroll in college. His bill, which has 24 co-sponsors in Arizona’s 60-member House of Representatives, would restrict all grants, scholarships, and awards administered by the university, even those funded by private donors.
Students on full academic scholarships would be exempted from the regulation, as would those on athletic scholarships. Asked why athletes were exempt, Kavanaugh said “they contribute to school spirit, and those on football and basketball teams also generate a lot of extra revenue.”
The athletic and academic loopholes, of course, mean that the bill’s largest impact would be on need-based aid.
February 22 Update | The tuition bill, HB 2675, has just been approved by the Appropriations Committee of the Arizona House of Representatives in what Anne Ryman of the Arizona Republic described as a “narrow” vote. On Twitter, Ms. Ryman described exchanges between committeemembers and students testifying against the bill as “heated,” giving the following example:
University of Arizona student James Allen: “You’re making it harder to achieve a higher education degree.”
Representative Michelle Ugenti: “Welcome to life.”
Ouch.
Stockton, California resident Kenneth Wright says a team of federal agents sent by the Department of Education busted down his door without warning yesterday morning, handcuffing him in the back of a cop car for more than six hours. And, he says, it was all because his estranged wife defaulted on her student loans.
The feds, meanwhile, deny that the raid was conducted over a student loan default, but confirm that the squad was sent by the DOE. The department’s Office of the Inspector General, a spokesperson says, “conducts about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds.”
Nearly a dozen students occupied a portion of the Rutgers administration building overnight in defiance of an administration that cut off their access to food and water yesterday evening. The group was able to sneak supplies in via a makeshift pulley system, and say they have no intention of leaving until their demands are met.
The group is demanding that Rutgers’ president endorse a tuition freeze, that new scholarships be put in place for underprivileged and first-generation students, that transcript fees be eliminated, and that the university increase “support for the rights of ALL University affiliated workers.” In addition, the group is calling on Rutgers to implement a new shared governance structure for the university. (A detailed explanation of the demands can be found at the above link.)
The occupiers have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed, and the For Student Power blog has been liveblogging their action since yesterday afternoon.
Is student lending a speculative bubble? Is higher education a scam now? Malcolm Harris makes the case. The whole thing — a cogent, thorough analysis — is well worth reading, but here’s the money quote:
If tuition has increased astronomically and the portion of money spent on instruction and student services has fallen, if the (at very least comparative) market value of a degree has dipped and most students can no longer afford to enjoy college as a period of intellectual adventure, then at least one more thing is clear: higher education, for-profit or not, has increasingly become a scam.
Seriously. Go read.
News reports this morning suggest that summer Pell Grants will be eliminated under President Obama’s budget deal with congressional Republicans, but that the Pell program would be otherwise untouched.
The elimination of summer Pell comes as no surprise, as Obama floated the cut in his own budget proposal two months ago. But as course offerings are being scaled back at campuses across the country, ending aid for summer classes will make it even more difficult for low-income students to complete their degree requirements in a reasonable time.
Republicans had sought to cut the maximum Pell Grant award, which now stands at $5,550, by fifteen percent.
Recent Comments