While universities’ price tags show higher numbers each year, students continue to look for ways to finance their educations.
The College Board, which administers the SAT, has suggested an increase in Pell Grant funding to help students with steep tuition bills. Pell Grants are currently awarded to low-income undergraduate students to help finance their educations. Currently, students can be awarded up to $3,750; the College Board is looking to increase this figure to $9,700.
This new suggested amount accounts for the average total of tuition, fees and room and board for the 2002-03 academic year.
A panel consisting of the College Board’s policy makers, higher-education representatives and private-business leaders as part of the board’s National Dialogue on Student Financial Aid decided on this new proposed amount. In its decision, this panel stressed the importance of providing student loans but warned of the dangers of increasing distribution of loans, claiming, “replacing grants with loans raises the net price of a college education, placing it beyond the reach of large numbers of qualified but needy students.”
According to Steve Van Ess, director of the Office of Student Financial Services at the University of Wisconsin, the Pell Grant program was originally designed to cover 60 percent of the total cost of a student’s attendance. Van Ess said he felt the amount should be increased to $8,000 or $9,000 to maintain this percentage for today’s inflated expenses.
In addition to Pell Grants, students used to be able to receive other kinds of scholarships and grants, which ultimately boosted their financial-aid awards to cover nearly 80 percent of the total cost of a college education, Van Ess said. In recent years, this number has decreased to a mere 20 percent.
“The Pell Grant program over time has shown itself as helping truly poor people,” Van Ess said. “About 3,300 undergrads are receiving Pell Grants at UW. This is approximately 15 percent out of the 26,000 undergrads, which is not a large number.”
UW officials said it seeks to serve students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. “Generally, we are serving students from across the income spectrum,” UW spokesman Erik Christianson said. “A slightly lower proportion of students come from the lowest part of the spectrum, which is something we have to pay attention to.”
The College Board also encouraged universities to provide more need-based awards to students with the help of funding from the federal government.
At UW, the poorest students receive significant aid packages and are targeted over students from other socioeconomic backgrounds when the grant money is distributed, Van Ess said.
“Tuition is rising more than inflation,” Van Ess said. “However, UW is trying to do something to keep these students harmless.”
The overall cost of increasing the number of Pell Grants awarded at UW would be large, Van Ess said, which would make a distribution enlargement unlikely.
The College Board is also looking to expand loan forgiveness for “students who enter and remain in certain key occupations and those who serve in high-need areas,” and is also looking at ways to simplify the financial-aid application process.
“This increase would recapture the original intent of the program,” Van Ess said. “It is an effective way of measuring needy students, and it’s great that this discussion is going on. This would be a good use of money.”