Financial Aid Changes
Stephanie Hall
Issue date: 9/24/08 Section: News
|
Beginning this fall, Congress increased the amount of unsubsidized loans a dependent or independent student can take out from the Federal government by $2000 a year. The national limit for this type of loan used to be $5500. As of this fall, it has been increased to $7500.
"They had an issue where-if you've seen those commercials for private loans-they are not that good of loans, so Congress decided to help students so they do not have to move to those private loans. They decided to open up eligibility for unsubsidized loans. It keeps your loans all together, the interest rate is the same-and lower," Severs said.
Congress also mandated a new policy stating that universities must look at a student's entire school record when deciding if a student is eligible to receive aid, instead of only the student's most recent school performance.
In the past, ISU has considered a student eligible to receive financial aid if they passed 80% of their credits attempted during their previous academic year. To fit with Congress's new guidelines, ISU is now requiring that students pass 67 percent of attempted credits during the students' entire college career. This policy will be implemented next fall.
Severs believes this will benefit many students. "This policy, I think, helps students. We used to look at just the prior academic year, so if the student had a really bad semester, they would have to make an appeal. This will allow for students who have just one bad semester. If they didn't make that 67 percent, that would not make them have to appeal for financial aid," Severs said.
Ross Knight, a student majoring in Mass Communications and an ASISU Senator believes this may actually hurt a lot of students because they will be affected long-term by bad semesters. "I think this will hurt students. Students should be judged on their current performance and not their performance in the past. Not all students come to college knowing what they want to do or succeeding at the start. It takes some students longer to adapt to the college atmosphere," Knight said.
Be the first to comment on this story