Taman Siswa

Lawmakers from all corners of Oregon are backing a new approach to college financial aid as the elixir to the state’s college-affordability woes.

But the plan is running into an affordability gap of its own, after fiscal analysts found that the costs could be 30 percent higher than originally thought.

On Friday, the House Education Committee unanimously approved the “shared-responsibility” model for college financial aid, on the heels of a 30-0 vote on the Senate floor. But Senate Bill 334-B was then shipped to the Legislature’s joint budget committee, which may have to perform surgery on the innovative plan.

Higher cost estimates are “going to require us to take another look at that program,” said Rep. Susan Morgan, R-Myrtle Creek, the senior Republican on the budget panel and one of many lawmakers who support the plan.

The shared-responsibility model, imported from Minnesota, is one of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s top priorities for the 2007 legislative session. It would shift the state’s lone financial aid award, the Oregon Opportunity Grant, from a standard 11 percent of college costs to a sliding scale based on need.

If fully funded, the plan guarantees students can pay for Oregon public universities with a maximum $11,000 in loans, assuming they work part time during the school year and full time in the summer.

A University of Oregon student from a family earning $29,999 would get an annual grant of $4,007, up from the current $1,674. The plan is expected to extend grants to 61 percent more students, and entice 2,769 more people to attend college who otherwise would be stymied by the costs.

The plan would vault Oregon from among the worst college-affordability ratings among the states to the top echelon “almost overnight,” Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, testified Friday.

But the plan may be in jeopardy despite widespread support from lawmakers, the governor and student groups.

House Speaker Jeff Merkley, D-Portland, said Wednesday that the Legislature may prune spending on the shared-responsibility plan, to meet the demand among lawmakers to bolster community college and university funding.

The shared-responsibility plan needs to be scrutinized “because it’s in the same area” of the budget, Merkley said. Lawmakers may have to adopt the plan as an experiment first, he said, or delay it.

“Those conversations are definitely going on,” said Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, chairman of the House Education Committee.

Kulongoski’s proposed 2007-09 budget includes $110 million for Opportunity Grants, up a whopping $47 million from 2005-07. That was designed to cover the $76 million yearly cost for the shared-responsibility plan for the second year of the budget, the 2008-09 academic year.

The joint legislative budget panel, led by Schrader and Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland, endorsed the plan and the governor’s budget figures.

But the original cost estimates were flawed, and assumed there’d be a reduction in students getting grants, said Steve Bender, a legislative fiscal analyst specializing in higher education. A more realistic estimate, keeping the governor’s eligibility and other guidelines intact, is $98 million a year, Bender said.

Coming up with an extra $22 million this late in the budgeting process will be tough, especially when Schrader and Nolan are scrounging for more dollars for community college and university operations.

Perhaps more importantly, the revised estimates mean future two-year costs could hit $200 million, a larger-than-expected ongoing commitment.

Kulongoski adviser Margie Lowe told the House Education Committee that the program is workable with the current legislative budget. The state could change some of the terms, such as giving less aid to those at higher income levels, Lowe said.

Buckley, who hopes the plan will stem enrollment losses at Southern Oregon University, agreed. “People believe in this idea so strongly that it might very well get adjusted some way,” he said.

Melissa Unger, executive director of the Oregon Students Association, worries the plan is endangered if lawmakers waste momentum and put it off until future budgets.

“It only works if there’s money,” Unger said. “I think if we miss this opportunity to fund this program, it won’t probably come back again.”

Information from: www.statesmanjournal.com