Aid high, growing with debt

EDITOR's NOTE: This article originally published in The Advocate on Aug. 31, 2011. To view original post, visit AccentAdvocate.com.

By Brett Abel, brettsabel@gmail.com

The Financial Aid Office distributed more than $12 million to Contra Costa College students in 2010-11 as the demand for federal aid for education increases, college officials said.

Despite having the lowest number of students in the district, more financial aid passed through CCC than sister schools Los Medanos or Diablo Valley colleges.

"There are more students already here applying for financial aid because of the economy," CCC Financial Aid Manager Viviane LaMothe said. "They cannot deal with it, so they turn to federal funding."

Krista Ducharme, acting district assistant comptroller, said of the $34 million in aid which came through the district last year, with $12.5 million supporting CCC students, $11.3 million went to LMC and $10.6 million through DVC, whose Full-Time Equivalent Students is nearly the same as the other two campuses combined.

The numbers from 2010-11 are a $5 million increase in money across the district from the previous year.

"This suggests an increase in students applying for and getting aid," Ducharme said.

CCC Interim Dean of Student Services Vicki Ferguson said the numbers going through financial aid are "phenomenal."

"With financial aid the nucleus of student services outside of Admissions and Records," Ferguson said, "we're dealing with money and getting it around to get students what they need to support them to be successful."

LaMothe said the volume of students walking through the Student Services Center for aid continues to increase.

"The numbers suggest there are more and more people in economic crisis turning to financial aid," LaMothe said. "It also suggests higher numbers of people coming back to school."

Last year, financial aid supported about 7,000 CCC students, an increase from 5,800 in 2009-10, LaMothe said. In 2010-11, CCC had an FTES of 6,740.

"That is a big, dramatic change," she said.

During this year's late add period, the first two weeks of school, 2,762 students came to the CCC Financial Aid Office, according to SARS data, and nearly 4,400 came in all of August.

LaMothe said these are not all new students to CCC, but veteran students looking for help during the current global recession.

Two hundred more students applied for federal Pell Grants by March than all of the 2009-10 year, LaMothe said.

Pell Grant recipients receive up to $5,500 per school year, do not repay the money and accounted for $10.5 million of the total given to CCC students in 2010-11. The year before that number was $8.8 million.

"There is a greater need to fund federal education expenditures," LaMothe said.

Students receiving federal funding this year will notice two major changes: larger checks sooner and harsher penalties for abusing aid.

The first endowment students receive will be 50 percent of their award for the semester, allowing them to purchase books and supplies sooner. The second check, however, will arrive later than usual.

"It is a way to get more money in the hands of students and keep them in school," LaMothe said. "Students will have to budget money a little more wisely."

Furthermore, the penalty for students receiving federal funding who drop classes before completing 60 percent of the term is paying back the money and losing eligibility for federal aid. The drop dates without federal penalty for 2011-12 are Oct. 27 and March 31.

Students receiving financial assistance within the district need to additionally complete 67 percent of units attempted each semester while maintaining a 2.0 GPA.

The number of applicants and aid dispersed increased in nearly every category of financial aid except for college work study, which decreased from $115,000 to $105,000 over the last two academic years.

Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which serve students with the lowest expected family contribution, delivered $168,000 in aid the last two years to students with exceptional need, but is not available this year as the federal government attempts to reduce SEOGs.

"We are funding programs like prisons, but don't spend tremendous amounts of money on education," LaMothe said. "A switch needs to be flipped. What's important needs to rise to the top."

The trend of students looking for help to pay for books, transportation and housing in addition to tuition and fees, is uniform across the state, LaMothe said, and floods her office.

"It is overwhelming the number of people who apply for federal financial aid," LaMothe said. "We are understaffed and overwhelmed. We close Fridays and are doing nothing but processing all student files."

"They go over and above what I witness," said Ferguson, who worked in the same area with financial aid in the SSC as EOPS director before her promotion to interim dean in the spring. "They get students paid so they can stay in school with a limited staff.

"At the end of the day, students are why we're here and we haven't forgotten that," she said. "It would be a huge problem if we ever forget that."