Indiana’s two largest public universities will need to scrape together almost $2 million to fulfill scholarship offers that were more generous than the state was willing to bankroll.

Indiana University’s Bloomington campus will take about $885,000 from building-maintenance and equipment budgets, while Purdue University will use $1 million originally set aside for students who apply late for financial aid.

The money will cover scholarship offers the schools made this spring to incoming students based on a state commission’s projections for Indiana’s largest scholarship program.

In March, estimated limits for the Frank O’Bannon grants, named for the late governor, were about $6,700 for public-college students.

Universities sent out financial-aid offers a month later based on the estimates, despite warnings that the final figure could be lower. And it was — about $1,000 below the estimate.

The change affects new students at IU-Bloomington, Purdue and Ball State University, where tuition costs surpass the scholarship limit.

“We really were between a rock and a hard place on this,” said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre. “We’ve decided to take the hit, but we also can’t be misleading prospective students on how much they can get on state aid.”

IU officials set aside money for 900 students enrolling this fall. Purdue will take care of 1,600 of its neediest students. An additional 1,250 Purdue students will be forced to borrow money, and 650 others can make up the difference using other scholarship money.

Ball State officials estimate about 700 incoming freshmen will be forced to borrow a combined $300,000 to cover the shortfall.

“We had to kind of take back some of the good news we were providing in our estimates,” said Tom Taylor, Ball State’s vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications.

Officials at the State Student Assistance Commission of Indiana blame the lower scholarship amounts on an unexpected 7 percent surge in aid applications, a tight state budget and federal changes that give more students access to financial aid.

“That’s really changed the landscape,” said Nick Vesper, the commission’s director of policy analysis and research. “We’re also looking at what’s going to happen over the next two years, and we have to keep money to make sure we can maintain awards in the next biennium.”

About 47,000 Hoosier students drew $136 million last year from the O’Bannon grant program, which covers tuition and fees.

A handful of legislators want the commission to set aside more money for this year, and IU President Adam Herbert has called for an overhaul of the state’s financial-aid system.

If students are complaining about the burden, they haven’t been vocal in public. Lawmakers have complained on their behalf, but they couldn’t pinpoint a student who would suffer under the commission’s decision.

“These are the students who are most in need,” said Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, who, with the General Assembly’s Black Caucus, wrote a letter to the governor. “For them to lose $1,000 is unconscionable in this day and age, particularly as it relates to low-income students in general, but minority students in particular.”

Rep. Joe Micon, D-West Lafayette, wants officials at the student-aid commission to ask the legislature for extra money.

Black Caucus members want Gov. Mitch Daniels to step in, but that’s unlikely.

David Shane, the governor’s senior education aide, pointed out that Indiana law gives the commission authority over such decisions, although “we’re sympathetic to the issues of both cost and access in this particular case.”

Shane agreed with IU’s president that lawmakers should consider changes to prevent similar problems in the future.

Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 12:34 am and is filed under Financial Aid, Scholarship. Tags: College, Education News, Financial Aid, Grant, Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.