Despite the proposed cuts to the Federal Pell Grant Program, Syracuse University is moving forward with the financial aid process as planned.

The university mailed financial aid awards on March 18 to regular-decision applicants who were accepted to SU, said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice president for enrollment management and director of scholarships and student aid at SU. The university also sent admissions notifications to applicants on March 18, she said. 

‘Those awards for students that are eligible does keep the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘At this point, nobody knows what’s going to happen there.’

In February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill, H.R. 1, which cuts nearly $60 billion from the 2011 fiscal year federal budget, including $5.7 billion from the Pell Grant Program, according to a U.S. News & World Report article published March 2. The changes would affect grants for the 2011-12 school year, lowering the maximum Pell Grant from $5,550 to $4,705, a decrease of $845. The U.S. Senate will now propose its own version of the bill before it moves onto President Barack Obama. 

The proposed cuts would reduce SU’s Pell Grant allocation by about $2.6 million, Copeland-Morgan said. Of the 14,201 undergraduates at SU for the 2010-11 school year, 3,962 — or nearly 28 percent of students — receive Pell Grants, she said. If the federal government moves forward with the cuts, Copeland-Morgan said, the university will fund the difference for Pell Grant recipients, whether they are incoming or returning students.

In early March, the university had yet to make a decision on what it would do if the Pell Grant Program lost funding, according to an article published in The Daily Orange on March 3.

‘We have contingencies in place that will also make whole the funding for our students who are eligible for Pell Grants,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘So that is our plan, in the short run, for the 2011-12 academic year is to continue to make that funding available.’

The university is working with elected officials to help them understand the importance of federal financial aid, she said.

‘In times of economic challenges, people need to be able to depend upon the federal financial aid program for retraining or for the attainment of a bachelor’s degree, in the case of Syracuse University,’ Copeland-Morgan said. 

If the cuts are made, 1.7 million students nationwide would no longer be eligible for the program, and an additional 7.5 million students would have their grants reduced, according to an email sent out to SU students on Feb. 24 by the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs. 

Diana Napolitano, a government relations associate in the Office of Government and Community Relations at SU, said her office worked with the financial aid office to send out the email to students. She said students will likely get another email when the Senate proposes a version of the bill. 

‘It depends on what the most appropriate action would be, but most likely we will send out another email,’ Napolitano said. ‘Because they’re talking drastic, drastic cuts.’

Students should take action by sending personal emails to their U.S. representatives and senators about what the Pell Grant Program means to them, according to the Feb. 24 email. 

The Pell Grant Program, which provides need-based grants to low- and moderate-income undergraduate students based on a family’s annual income and the school cost, was fully funded for 2011-12 before H.R. 1 was cleared in the House, according to the U.S. News & World Report article. The Pell Grant Program will have to deal with a budget shortfall of almost $20 billion in 2012 if no long-term changes are enacted, according to the article. About 27 percent of college students nationwide currently receive funding from the Pell Grant, according to the article. 

‘The good news is we have more students going to college,’ said Copeland-Morgan, SU’s director of scholarships and student aid. ‘The bad news is we have less people that are able to pay for college. So this is not simply a short-term problem that is going to go away. It’s a longer-term problem that the federal government and the policymakers have to grapple with.’

Although SU recently sent out financial aid awards to those regular-decision applicants accepted for fall 2011, Copeland-Morgan said it is unclear when the Senate will deal with H.R. 1.

The proposal to reduce the Pell Grant Program has only been approved in the House thus far, said Sara Gast, public affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of Education. She said she is unsure when the Senate will propose its own version of the bill. 

‘The Senate has not approved that version, so it hasn’t even made it through Congress, much less the president,’ Gast said. ‘The cuts aren’t finalized or anything like that.’

The Education Department has been in talks with both the House and the Senate regarding the need to protect the maximum Pell Grant of $5,550, she said. 

‘We’re certainly trying to communicate that message to all stakeholders, including schools and students, that we’re really dedicated to keeping the maximum amount,’ Gast said. 

Tom Keane, director of the Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment at Cornell University, said Cornell is also moving forward, assuming the program doesn’t change. More than 16 percent of its undergraduates receive Pell Grants, he said. 

‘It’s been a little challenging for us because all we have is pending legislation,’ he said.

But if cuts are made, Keane said Cornell will have to adjust and decide how to make up for the reduced funding from the program. He said the university will consider funding the difference itself, leaving the families to cover the difference or splitting the difference between the families and university.

‘We don’t know for sure yet,’ Keane said. ‘We can talk all we want, but we have to wait for the Senate.’

jdharr04@syr.edu

Published on April 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jon: jdharr04@syr.edu