Graphs - Financial Aid

Ohio has under-funded need-based student aid for decades, but policy initiatives from two years ago have made the problem more acute than ever.

The small increase in need-based financial aid in the current state budget only begins to repair the recent damage to Ohio's commitment to the higher education of its neediest citizens.

Borrowers from Ohio independents have a lower default rate on student loans than their peers nationally. This cannot be said for other sectors, especially for-profit colleges.

Student success at Ohio's traditional colleges and universities is less reliant on students' ability to borrow.

Note: Credentials include degrees and certificates.

While business officers at independent nonprofit colleges and universities worry about whether students will come and can afford to attend, at for-profit colleges the key concern is availability of tax money to support their businesses.

The repeal two years ago of the Student Choice Grant, which supported Ohioans attending in-state independent colleges, eliminated a key incentive for students to stay in their home state for their education.

In its recently enacted budget, the state of Ohio kept the Ohio College Opportunity Grant alive, but could not return its level of support for needy students to its level of just three years ago.

Students from for-profit colleges are disproportionatley more likely to default on their student loans.

Ohio's independent colleges continue to increase their investment in financial aid from their own resources. This commitment has more than doubled in ten years, and more than tripled over 12 years.

The newest proposal on financial aid to the state's neediest students promotes a radical shift in focus.

Newly proposed changes in the Ohio College Opportunity Grant for the next two academic years will cut the state's support for its poorest students attending independent colleges by nearly two thirds over this year, and nearly seven eighths over just three years.

in the most recent report, half or more of Pell Grant recipients nationwide, depending on sector, cannot contribute a single dollar to their college education; and between two thirds and three fourths can only afford $1,000 or less.

By redistributing its higher education funds to limit public-campus tuition increases and simulataneously slash need-based aid, the state of Ohio more than tripled the out-of-pocket tuition at the public baccalaureate campuses for its poorest citizens.

The attempt to promote student access, by first freezing then limiting public-sector tuitions even as total higher education appropriations shrank, squeezed student financial aid and gave public-campus subsidy larger shares of smaller pies.

The nation's public colleges and universities are catching on to something that independents have been focusing on for years: using grant aid from their own resources to meet student need.

No one is proud of the number of students who default on their student loans, especially those shown here who default within two years of leaving college, but there is considerable variation within higher education sectors.

As the new fiscal year starts, Ohio's commitment to the higher education of its neediest citizens continues to shrink.

In the 2008-2009 academic year, Ohio's independent colleges increased the amount of student aid they gave from their own resources by 8.1 percent.

Ohio's commitment to its neediest college students will continue to shrink in the next academic year.

For the first time in this decade, more than half of entering first-year students in 2009 secured "aid that must be repaid" - i.e., loans - to support their college education.

For more information, visit the Freshman Survey section of the Higher Education Research Institution at the University of California at Los Angeles: www.heri.ucla.edu.

The financial commitment of Ohio’s independent colleges to their own students has nearly tripled over a ten-year period.

As the start of the new school year approaches, campuses across the state, both public and private, are scrambling to help students faced with massive — and in one sector, total — cuts in state need-based financial aid.

Colleges around the state are now scrambling to help this fall's students, many of whom face thousands of dollars in state financial aid cuts.

Ohio independent colleges and universities have been able to educate increasing numbers of students from their home state, thanks to state programs such as the Student Choice Grant. The future with much more limited funding is cloudy.

Cuts in state aid - 10 percent less than the prior year - have placed more pressure on Ohio's independent colleges to assist students from their own funds. And they have responded by increasing student grants by almost 10 percent.

Changes in the state's financial aid programs proposed in the Executive Budget would drastically reduce the share that students at Ohio's independent colleges receive.

The outcome of the just-signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - the "stimulus bill" - was most beneficial to students with financial need, as the maximum Pell grant will leap even higher than last week's chart (below) anticipated.

The federal commitment to needy students - finally unstuck after years of underfunding - may become even more substantial, depending on the progress of the economic stimulus bill that is headed to a House-Senate conference.

While a higher share of students borrow to attend private colleges, the percentage difference between public and private sectors is not as great as you might believe.

The newer need-based OCOG aid program offers a smaller share of money overall to students at independent campuses - although with a larger average grant - than the old OIG for two reasons. First, the difference in awards in OCOG to students at public and private colleges reflects less of the difference of the tuition charged by each sector than in OIG. Next, part-time students who constitute a larger share of enrollment at two-year and for-profit colleges are eligible for an OCOG award but not for an OIG.

Independent College Shares of Student Headcount and State of Ohio Higher Education Funds (not including capital funds)

Academic Year 2006-2007/Fiscal Year 2007

If you factor in money from the state's capital budget that supports infrastructure at public campuses, the share the state offers to independent colleges toward meeting Ohio's higher education goals shrinks even more.

Ohio's independent colleges award more than 3/4 of the grants received by their students - a commitment to their students unmatched by any other education sector.

Ohio's independent colleges have a large and increasing share of providing financial aid grants to their students - totaling nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars in the 2006-07 academic year.

The total dollars awarded in institutional financial aid grants by AICUO members jumped by 136 percent in a decade, far outstripping the 10-year increase in tuition and fees of 61%.

This fall, nearly 2/3 of the financial aid given to first-time, full-time freshman at AICUO member institutions came from the institutions themselves.

Undergraduate Financial Aid by Source

Ohio's independent colleges are the single largest source of financial aid to theirstudents - a half billion dollars annually.

Student Choice Grant Levels

Although the current state budget cut the Student Choice Grant for Ohio students at the state’s independent colleges by almost a third, the grant still removes more than $2,500 from a student’s loan debt after four years of study.