financial aid and rants and raves

Nice job breaking it, hero...

I was hoping to chronicle the SUNYFAP conference in the same way I wrote about Santiago and Cancun, but the news was so bad that I wasn't capable (willing?) to explore the topic beyond kvetching with my director, who was aghast as I was. Almost everything I learned was bad, though I did not learn everything. The regulations, far more important to financial aid than the law itself, won't be revealed until HESC has it's board of directors' meeting on May 26th. There is a glimmer of hope for some relief from the more onerous implications of the law, or at least others feel that way. I'm much more doubtful.

I'd like to try to avoid speculation and editorializing as much as possible, since we don't have much concrete information as to the regulations, but a few things do need to be said. Let's start with the good news: for the small handful of students who meet the income guidelines, and are motivated enough, smart enough, and disciplined enough to remain eligible, the program is a godsend - if they even get it - see below. Also, I conferred with my fellow financial aid professionals over dinner, and they agreed with my theory on the school choice possibilities as the probable legacy of the scholarship. All the rest of the news is bad.

First, the overselling of Excelsior and the amount of misinformation is staggering, giving students false hope, and making all our lives much more difficult. As mention in my prior post, there's only a narrow band of income where a student will get this money without getting financial aid anyway. Again, it only covers the tuition, not books or fees, so students will be on the hook for those expenses no matter what.

Second, it is not an entitlement, a word that has legal meaning in financial aid. Pell and TAP are considered entitlements, much like Social Security, food stamps, or welfare. If you meet the requirements, hand in any and all required documents, and relevant deadlines haven't passed for a particular time period, you are legally entitled to the money, period. Funds like SEOG and APTS are discretionary, and also limited by their respective appropriations. In addition to the requirements listed above, schools have guidelines for who gets what, and when the money runs out, there's no more, regardless of your income, academic standing, etc. Excelsior works the same way. In fact, there's only $81,000,000 (though I had heard $87,000,000 at the conference), budgeted for the first year. Assuming a full award ($5,500 with any extra tuition charges waived by the public colleges), that would mean only 14,727 students would be eligible. That's fewer students then presently attend my single community college. True, most awards will not be the full amount, but the number of potential students far outstrips the available money. To remedy this, HESC will have a lottery, with continuing students having better odds. Naturally, brand new students are the ones asking about Excelsior, not those presently enrolled. It's worth mentioning that there's some fine print in the law that hurts the schools financially. Students who get this award have their tuition frozen for four or two years, depending on the college, and around $1000 is actually not charged by the college as part of the policy. This doesn't hurt us, since our tuition is below $5,500, but other, smaller SUNY schools are panicked. It isn't that big of a deal in my opinion, since so few students will end up getting the aid anyway. By the way. if you lose the scholarship, your tuition goes up to whatever the normal price would have been, Can you say sticker shock?

Third, there's some confusion about this, but it seems that scholarships dedicated only to the paying of tuition must be used before Excelsior is available. More than any other requirement we discussed, this caused the most anger on behalf of the four-year colleges. They have foundations that award scholarships using private donations, and suddenly it's hurting the students because the way the monies are earmarked: they can only be used for tuition, preventing the student from getting Excelsior. They have agreements with donors, and cannot legally change the program, or something to that effect. I wasn't entirely clear on why it's a problem, only that this is a problem, and a big one at that. The schools may be really concerned about their fundraising. It may be fixed, or it may not be, but that does seem to be the policy right now.

Finally, but by no means the final word, the application isn't even available right now, and I'm not sure when it will become available. The Heathcare.gov debacle comes to mind, though on a smaller, more concentrated scale. Also, HESC will require presently enrolled students to send unofficial transcripts to them, and they'll determine whether or not the student meets the required academic progress for a funding source no one could have predicted would exist when the students registered and attempted the classes. Combine that with the fact students cannot even apply for it right now, and when will students be awarded for Fall of '17, February of 2018? March 2018? For the college, I suggested that anyone who wants this money would need a separate funding source - loans, which would be refunded after HESC paid the school. Our deadlines won't change, so unless HESC gets its shit together (ha!), loans or a payment plan will be required, my input notwithstanding.

As per one of the trainers from HESC, this program was designed to give Comrade First Secretary Gov. Andrew Cuomo a good soundbite and show that he could do what Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), promised: free college. Obviously, the truth is a little different, and I hope, with some justification, that it blows up in his face, derailing his 2020 presidential hopes. The worst part is that there was an easy, correct way to do what he wanted: give everyone maximum TAP making under the prescribed income limits. It's a first dollar program, so Pell remains with the student for books, supplies, etc., and all the needed infrastructure was already in place. It would have helped students en masse; everyone in financial aid already understood the program, and could have been implemented immediately. It would have cost more money, but with the administrative costs of the new program, who's to say it won't turn out to be around the same amount anyway? Alas, such a simple solution doesn't generate headlines and praise from progressives. It was painful to hear the HESC representatives agree with me.

This post is written only to skim the surface of the realities of this lunacy, and trust me; this will be a nightmare. There's plenty more I could have said, but some of those things get into the arcane workings of financial aid, and aren't relevant to the end reader. In other words, they're boring enough to put me to sleep, much less a layperson. Concerning facts I do consider important, as I confirm more, I'll blog more. As an example, I have't yet touched on what's required academically to keep the scholarship, since there's contradictory information right now, and that's amongst financial aid personnel. The bar will be very high, but I want the full picture. If you're reading this and believe I'm merely avoiding the topic because I want to now assume the fetal position under my desk and sob quietly, congrats, you're paying attention. For now, there's a long-delayed post that never seems to get written: what I want to do next and why it's been taking me so long to write the essay.