Congress gave final approval last Thursday to a spending plan that would increase federal spending is some areas of financial assistance, while decreasing others, said Christine McGuire, director of financial assistance at Boston University.
The plan, which McGuire said she has lukewarm feelings on, would slightly increase funding on Pell Grants and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, but decrease the funding for Work Study programs.
‘It is a little bit of a balancing act between the programs,’ McGuire said.
The Pell Grant is the government’s primary source of grants for low-income students and currently the maximum grant a student can receive is $4,000. Under Congress’s new plan, the maximum grant would be increased by $50. About 2,000 students at Boston University were given Pell Grants last year.
Work Study, which affects approximately 3,000 undergraduate Boston University students, will also see a decrease in funding under Congress’s proposal, McGuire said. After the cut is applied, work study will see a $7 million decrease.
Under Congress’s plan, funding for the SEOG program would increase by 6 percent. However, McGuire noted that the program is not large to begin with, affecting a much smaller percentage of students than the Pell Grant. About 1,700 Boston University students were awarded SEOG this year.
This is the second time work study has been cut in the last couple of years, McGuire said.
Although under Bush’s proposal Pell Grants would have remained unchanged, McGuire wasn’t satisfied with Congress’s increase.
‘I hate to say that the increase isn’t substantial, but when talking about college tuition, you are lucky if $50 buys you a book,’ McGuire said.
In order to be eligible to receive the SEOG, a student must be Pell Grant eligible, so Boston University students currently eligible for the grants could see a slight increase on their financial aid packages, McGuire said.
However, because the institution receives the SEOG money for the grants and then allocates them to students, ‘it is inappropriate to say that all Pell Grant students will see an increase in their package,’ McGuire said.
‘It all depends on how [Boston University] packages the money for the student,’ she said.
Although the increases were not included in Bush’s proposal, federal financial aid’s total cost remained at the level supported by Bush, resulting in the decrease of some programs from their 2002 levels.
‘The priorities have just been realigned,’ McGuire said.
McGuire could not speculate how BU students would be affected by Work Study cuts.
‘It is hard to know how much work study will be hit,’ she said. ‘I don’t anticipate changing the package to drastically. Usually, if you had a certain amount the prior year and are in the same financial situation, we award the same financial package the following year.’
McGuire assured that the university is committed to maintaining stability in students’ financial packages from year to year.
‘Variations at a place like BU are not often felt in the student’s pocket, but rather in the pocket of the institution,’ she said.
Although Boston University does not lobby individually, the institution does advocate using professional associations, such as NASFA, which has lobbied fervently for increasing aid in all grant programs.
Boston University’s position on Congress’s proposal is relatively neutral, she said.
‘I always wish it could be more, but it certainly could be worse,’ said McGuire.
BU spokesman Colin Riley agreed.
‘Given the economic situation America is in right now, we can’t be too critical of the proposal,’ he said.
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