[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]Two campus leaders spoke to University of Wisconsin students Wednesday about how recent proposals from the Bush administration might change campus-based financial-aid programs.

The lecture, led by Senior Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Federal Relations Rhonda Norsetter and Office of Student Financial Services Director Steve Van Ess, was aimed at educating the audience about the role of federal support in postsecondary education.

Currently, the federal government plays a massive role in the university’s financial aid, providing about 70 percent of the funding for students, according to Van Ess. He said because federal funding for college education is so substantial, any changes in student financial-aid programs are very important.

The programs undergo reauthorization every five years or so, according to Norsetter.

“We are right smack dab in the middle of this reauthorization process,” Norsetter said.

She added that the Bush administration has announced its proposed changes to these programs for the fiscal year 2006.

“There are some good things and some not so good things in his proposal,” Norsetter said. “The positives are modest. The negatives are quite substantial.”

The administration’s budget proposal seeks to raise the Pell Grant’s maximum dollar amount 5.6 percent over the next five years, but would fund this change by eliminating various student aid programs. These include the Perkins Loan and the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership grant, according to Norsetter. Federal grants such as Pell and LEAP, unlike loans, do not have to be repaid by students.

Van Ess said the Perkins Loan program is one of this university’s most efficient forms of financial aid. This is because previous students who are now paying off their Perkins Loans are constantly replenishing the program’s funds. According to Van Ess, this “revolving door” effect has successfully provided 50 years of federal postsecondary funding, with very little new money being required from the government.

Both Norsetter and Van Ess said they doubted funding for the Perkins Loan would be cut completely, since this suggestion has met so much opposition. They said Bush’s budget outline was only a proposal, one that would see many changes before its approval.

The proposed budget also seeks to end funding for programs like Talent Search, Upward Bound, and GEAR UP, which provide aid to first-generation college students.

“Our students are needy. Students in the Southwest are needy,” Norsetter said. “We need to stop moving money around and start increasing funding.”

Although some contentious fiscal issues were discussed during Wednesday’s discussion, Van Ess compared current statistics to those of the past in order to show that the UW is improving as much as it can in regards to financial aid.

“From all sources, UW … students have received $246.5 million,” Van Ess said. “Ten years ago, it was $114 million.”

He added that there is always room for improvement and that the UW’s efforts are ongoing.

Katie Elliot, a member of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, the organization which held Wednesday’s lecture, said it is important for students to realize the university’s efforts to make college more affordable are continuous.

“It can seem like the politics are being made without taking students’ best interests into account,” Elliot said. “There is this idea that nobody cares, when in reality they do.”