| Financial
Aid Can’t Keep Pace
8/30/06 - By Mary Specht, USA TODAY
Financial aid for students attending public flagship universities increased
from 2002 to 2005 — but not as much as tuition and fees did, suggests USA TODAY's
annual 50-state survey.
The survey collected financial aid data from 65 of the 75 flagship schools
contacted. It took into account state, federal and institutional need- and merit-based
scholarships and grants, but not loans.
Students who received aid got an average of about $1,000 more last year, the
latest year for which data are available, than they did in 2002, the first year
for which data were collected. The median aid increase nationally during those
years was 17%. That is compared with about $1,465 more in tuition and fees,
a median increase of 34%, in the same period.
"Long term, that trend is very troubling because
that means the ability to pay is eroding, and it's eroding
most quickly for the lower-income population",
says Jamie Merisotis, president of the Institute for
Higher Education Policy, a think tank in Washington,
D.C.
The University of California, Berkeley reported the highest average amount
of aid to students who received it: $12,021. Slightly more than half of its
students received aid. Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., was another
top provider of aid. The 92% of students who received aid got an average of
$11,673.
Two other schools also averaged more than $10,000 per student receiving aid:
the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, at $11,738, and the University
of California, Los Angeles, at $10,301.
Of the schools providing data, average aid was lowest at Kansas State University
in Manhattan, Kan., at $2,389, where in-state tuition is $5,779.
The survey suggests that slightly more students at state universities are getting
aid than did four years ago: 60% received aid in 2002, compared with 65% last
year.
At eight of the schools surveyed, 90% or more of the students received some
aid. At the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and the University of Florida
in Gainesville, 95% received aid. (The University of Florida also had the lowest
tuition of the 75 schools this year, $3,206.)
About 23% of students received aid at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the lowest percentage among the universities surveyed.
| FINANCIAL AID STATISTICS |
| Percentage who receive aid |
Highest
|
|
New Mexico, Albq.
Florida, Gainesville
UNLV, Las Vegas
Wyoming, Laramie
Purdue, W. Lafayette |
95.1
95.0
94.0
92.1
92.0 |
| |
|
| Lowest |
|
Wisconsin, Madison
U.Va., Charlottesville
Illinois State, Normal
Washington, Seattle
Ohio, Athens |
23.1
25.4
26.0
30.0
33.0 |
| |
|
| Biggest 5-year percent increases in
average aid amount |
Idaho State, Pocatello
UT, Knoxville
K-State, Manhattan
Wyoming, Laramie
Indiana, Bloomington |
266.5
110.8
69.1
62.8
52.2 |
| |
|
|
Jamie
Hardy