As many as 84,000 college students could lose financial aid eligibility because a provision prohibiting changes in a student aid formula was not part of the spending bill Congress recently approved for the 2005 fiscal year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

University of Wisconsin Student Financial Services Director Steve Van Ess said a formula change could have widespread effects because although the formula is intended to apply only to federal aid, many state programs and individual universities use it to distribute funds.

Van Ess said the formula is used to calculate a family’s “expected … contribution” toward a child’s education and includes allowances for “necessary expenses” such as taxes. The more allowances financial aid students are allowed, the less money they are expected to contribute.

“Families want big allowances because it makes their income look smaller,” Van Ess said.

The formula changes proposed last year, which did not take effect, were based on tax data from 2000, which Education Department officials say are the most reliable numbers, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

Van Ess said these figures could be misleading, however, because in 2000 the economy was much stronger, so taxes were lower. Families will not be given allowances for the higher taxes they now pay and will appear “less needy in general” under a new formula, he added.

Formula changes were proposed last year, but a provision banning them was added to the 2004 spending bill. Sen. John Corzine, D-N.J., who wrote the 2004 provision, expressed disapproval of the change, which came from Republican leaders under pressure from the White House, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“I don’t know how the Bush administration can call themselves compassionate when they are throwing students out of the opportunity to seek a college education,” Corzine said in a release.

Liz Sanger, chair of the UW College Democrats, also sees a lack of compassion in the possible formula changes.

“I’m definitely not surprised,” Sanger said. “It’s just another example where we see George Bush claiming to be standing up for students, as he did throughout his campaign, and then taking this entire group of people for granted.”

Sanger said students showed they wanted to be given a voice and have their interests represented in the past election, but Bush was “silencing a whole group of people who cannot go to college without this aid.”

Jessi Schober, second vice chair of the UW College Republicans, disagrees with the notion that the Bush administration lacked compassion and said Republicans were trying to budget responsibly.

“Right now Congress has to look at their priorities,” Schober said. “Republicans aren’t uncompassionate; there’s a reason … they do what they do. Right now saving money and spending money wisely is a huge issue.”

Van Ess said not all funding would be affected equally. For example, university discretionary funds using the federal formula would not give out less money. Rather, they would distribute it differently.

“They’re not cutting money in the program,” Van Ess said. “They’re making students less eligible.”

In the case of federal grants, however, the government would be giving out less grant money. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported the U.S. Education Department budget officials would have saved $270 million last year if the formula had been revised.

Van Ess said a formula change would not affect students in extreme poverty because their EFC would still be zero.

“The very needy students will still make the same amount,” Van Ess said.