Cuts threaten college students’ scholarships
MAKS GOLDENSHTEYN; Staff writer
When University of Washington junior Janel Brown talks to younger students about college, she tells them that if they do their part in the classroom, the rest will take care of itself.
The same assurances were made to Brown while she attended Franklin High School in inner-city Seattle. Due in large part to Husky Promise, a tuition assistance program that serves about 7,000 low or lower middle-income students at the UW, Brown is the first one in her family to attend college.
Husky Promise, much like Washington State University’s Cougar Commitment, helps eligible students bridge the gap between the cost of tuition and fees and the aid provided by federal and state grants.
Yet with all the talk of cuts to financial aid and the tuition increases needed to help offset cuts to higher education, Brown is worried she won’t be able to finish school. And she’s concerned that news of the cuts to Husky Promise might stunt the ambition of high school students as they look toward the future.
“The kids I’m working with come from backgrounds where promises are broken all the time,” Brown said during a recent interview. “I don’t want to go out here and tell these kids, ‘Hey, someone’s going to meet you halfway,’ and they don’t. I don’t want this to be another broken promise.”
Last week, UW President Mark Emmert set off on a statewide campaign to promote Husky Promise to high school students, starting with Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma. His message: “If you work hard, there’s a spot for you here.”
Emmert admits he’s in a precarious situation – he could be advertising the program only “to find the legs cut out” from it later on, he said last week.
Under Gov. Chris Gregoire’s initial budget, introduced in December, $146 million would be cut from the State Need Grant program. In total, more than 12,000 students at two-year and four-year institutions across the state could lose their state financial aid eligibility if cuts to the grant program are carried out.
Last month, Gregoire introduced a new budget that, through higher taxes and reliance on federal assistance, calls for the some restoration of financial aid as an add-back. But nothing is for certain, as lawmakers look to close the budget gap.
Here’s what’s at stake at some major public institutions if the Legislature can’t find a way to restore the funding:
At UW, the cuts would cost 5,000 UW students half of their Husky Promise award, said Kay Lewis, UW’s director of financial aid. The program’s remaining 2,000 students would lose all of their Husky Promise funding, she said. That’s because the State Need Grant program backs about 37 percent of Husky Promise.
At WSU about 2,800 students have their tuition covered by Cougar Commitment, said Chio Flores, director of the school’s office of financial aid and scholarships. But she said it’s too early to tell what kind of an impact the proposed cuts will have on the students served by the program. “It’s going to be a very challenging year to say the least,” Flores said.
At The Evergreen State College, 44 percent of the undergraduates rely on State Need Grant, said school spokesman Jason Wettstein. Around 285 students would likely to lose their funding altogether with the proposed cuts to the State Need Grant program, while the remaining students would see their aid cut by more than half, Wettstein said.
WORK-STUDY FACES AX
Not spared by the governor’s latest proposal are other financial aid programs, the WAVE and Washington Scholars scholarships, the Future Teachers Scholarship and the work-study option, one of the only tuition assistance programs the state offers for low- or middle-income graduate students. Those are slated for suspension.
Seattle lawyer David Ruzumna is almost 40 years old and isn’t usually one to get caught up in political causes, but says endangering the work-study program “would be a monumentally stupid thing for the Legislature to do.”
Ruzumna’s small firm employs a legal intern from the Seattle University School of Law whose wages Ruzumna says he couldn’t pay without the subsidy the state’s work-study program provides.
He calls work-study program a “win-win-win” situation. Law students earn the money they need and get the kind of real-world experience that’s hard to come by at school. They help out by taking on the pro bono cases Ruzumna says he usually doesn’t have time for. People who would otherwise not be able to afford a lawyer get the help they need.
“Without the intern, I would say, ‘I simply don’t have the time to help you,’” he said.
About 9,000 students in Washington earned $26 million in 2007-08 as part of the work-study program, most of it coming from the state and rest from employer wages, according to the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board. Last year, 392 Seattle University students earned work-study wages; 212 of them were law students.
UP IN ARMS
The potential cuts have UW senior Jason Padvorac up in arms.
The bioengineering major recently launched an online Facebook campaign to fight the financial aid cuts, aimed at pooling resources between students and those concerned about the proposed cuts to financial aid in Washington.
His latest idea is to ask students to post messages along with their ZIP codes for lawmakers on their personal Facebook pages or on the campaign’s. Padvorac hopes he’ll eventually be able to send a virtual map of Washington state to legislators with personal messages popping up from different constituencies.
As of Thursday, more than 2,700 students, alumni, parents, faculty and others had joined Padvorac’s “Campaign for Higher Education” page.
On Friday, hundreds of UW students gathered on the Capitol steps at noon to voice their displeasure over the proposed cuts to financial aid, cuts to the school’s budget and increased tuition. At the same time, students at Western Washington University, The Evergreen State College and Central Washington University staged walkouts. And on Thursday around 500 Eastern Washington University and 150 Washington State University students held walkouts of their own, according to media reports.
‘EVERYTHING’S IN PLAY’
The result of the latest state revenue forecast, to be released next week, will likely dictate the severity of the cuts to higher education, said Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, the Senate Ways and Means Committee’s vice chairman for the operating budget.
“Obviously everything is in play,” he said Thursday.
“There’s a recognition from the Legislature that it’s important, especially for our poor and middle-class students, that they have access to higher education institutions,” Tom said. “Times are tough right now, but we need to make sure we give students the resources to maximize their potential and help the state grow long-term wise.”
Tom said lawmakers are trying to restore as many of the cuts to higher education as possible depending on what the revenue forecast says.
“If you ask me personally, I definitely want to buy back the Need Grant and I certainly would consider work-study too,” said Rep. Kelli Linville, a Bellingham Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. “It all depends on what other cuts we come up with, what the committees have come up with and what potential revenue we’re considering. It’s a little premature for me to know.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Maks Goldenshteyn is a University of Washington student intern working in The News Tribune/ The Olympian’s Capitol bureau.
