President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law Tuesday, dedicating a major portion of the budget to the promotion of higher education.

The stimulus package includes an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award, more money for work-study and more tax credits for students and families paying for tuition and other college-related costs such as textbooks, said David Giroux, spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin System.

“There is significant aid there and assistance from the federal government to help students continue with their college education and for those who aren’t [at Madison] yet, some encouragement to come,” Giroux said.

UW Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said the bill provides additional money to more low to middle income students who qualify for the tax credit.

Bazzell said the act will not change the way students are asked to apply to UW or the allocation of available resources.

In addition, Bazzell said the university expects to see a positive impact on the amount of competitive federal research money available.

Bazzell added the university prefers competitive grants as opposed to earmark grants considering “UW has always been a campus that wants to compete because it competes very well nationally with other institutions for available research dollars.”

He also said the university is very excited about the potential increase in resources the economic stimulus bill will hopefully bring.

“Right now we’re very focused on working with the new state agency that’s responsible for dividing the dollars up and working with the federal government so we better understand how we compete for those dollars,” Bazzell said.

The Wisconsin Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, the new state agency, is focused on allocating and spending the stimulus package money in an efficient manner, Bazzell said.

According to Bazzell, the university is still waiting for the rules of the ARRA to be provided. UW officials are still uncertain what affect the stimulus bill will have on UW and what the overall impact will be on the state.

“Just like we compete for federal research money now, they increased the pot significantly … but I would expect that we would be involved in competitive processes for those additional valors,” Bazzell said.

Giroux hopes the competitive grant money made available at the federal level will create new and expanded research on UW’s campuses and will not only benefit the institution but will also stimulate economic growth in the future for the entire state.

“We’ve been working very closely with our federal delegation on the components of this that relate to higher education and we are very pleased with those positions,” Giroux said. “It recognizes that higher education is a major component of the nation’s economic health and well-being, and that an infusion of resources into higher education is a good investment in helping our nation’s economy recover and rebound.”