A U.S. House bill could decrease the amount of financial aid available to many of Ohio University’s undergraduate students.
The proposed bill would cut funding for the federal Pell Grant program, which provides grants up to $5,550 per person each year for about 12,600 OU students throughout all campuses, said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management. Although the bill was recently struck down in the Senate, the potential for cuts in the future still remains.
The Pell Grant program is the largest federal grant program, which awards billions of dollars every year to low- and moderate-income undergraduate students. The program gave out about $28.2 billion nationwide during the 2009–10 school year, said Sondra Williams, OU’s director of student financial aid.
The potential decrease in Pell Grant funding, coupled with increasing tuition, is going to be detrimental for lower-income students, Williams said.
“Now to kind of go backward when the costs aren’t getting any cheaper, it’s going to be kind of tough for students, I believe,” she said.
The House bill aims to reduce the maximum grant amount by $845, or about 15 percent, to about $4,700, Williams said. In the long-term, the bill would also reduce spending on the Pell Grant program by about $66.4 billion between 2012 and 2021, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
OU awarded almost $38 million in Pell Grants to about 10,300 students on all campuses last school year, Williams said. Those numbers were up about 35 percent from the year before, when OU gave out about $23.3 million to 7,600 students, she said.
OU has disbursed $33.7 million so far this year, but numbers are not yet available for Spring Quarter, Williams said.
“I’m sure we’re going to have a huge increase this year, too,” she said.
Because Pell Grant amounts are the same at all colleges and universities, students who receive the grants would have to make up the 15 percent loss wherever they go to school, Cornell said.
“It’s very concerning,” he said. “These are the neediest students already. They’re going to feel the pain the most.”
kh228206@ohiou.edu
@ThePostCampus
