Finding aid a tough task in UW System
11:21 PM 6/21/04
Karen Rivedal Wisconsin State Journal

Eighteen-year-old Rachel Fassbender of Sun Prairie knows it's going to cost more to attend UW-Madison this fall. <

Annual tuition alone is up $700, and financial aid is limited. <

But she is undaunted. <

Fassbender said she didn't work summers, nights and weekends at her dad's liquor store since she was 12 for nothing. She always knew she'd have to pay at least half her tuition herself, she said, under the deal she made with her parents, Barb and Mike. <

"I expect that tuition is going to be pretty high, considering the amount of opportunity Madison offers its students," said Fassbender, who described herself as "ecstatic" to be a member of this fall's freshman class. "I've been saving money and I've applied for scholarships and been preparing for this for a while. I'm not happy about (the 15.4 percent tuition increase), but I'm not real surprised." <

Fassbender surely gets an "A" for attitude. But just as surely, the university and the federal government aren't making it any easier. Two constants have held true in higher education for at least the past 20 years: Tuition keeps going up, and federal student aid has not kept pace. <

In the University of Wisconsin System, that gap may be keeping low- to moderate-income students away from college. A study this spring showed System enrollment from 1992 to 2002 increased only for students from families with incomes above $61,000 - the top 40 percent in family income. Enrollment decreased for students from families in all lesser income groups. <

This fall, under President Bush's proposed spending plan, Pell grants for the country's neediest students will be frozen again, making it three straight years that the maximum award will be $4,050. The average Pell grant in the University of Wisconsin System was $2,358 in 2002-03, said Kris Andrews, the System's federal relations coordinator. <

Under a pending federal measure called the College Access and Opportunity Act of 2004, the Pell grant would stay flat for another five years. In 2002-03, the most recent data available, the Pell grant covered about 64 percent of tuition and fees, Andrews said, down 20 percentage points from a decade ago, when tuition was lower. <

The Pell grant will cover even less, Andrews noted, when the roughly 30 percent tuition increases in the System's current two-year budget - sparked by a $250 million state budget cut - take full effect in June 2004. <

"Obviously, this is a significant issue for students," Andrews said, "because the single best way to help students obtain a college education, and especially our low-income students, is through the availability of financial aid." <

The prospects for federal guaranteed loans used by a majority of college students is only marginally better. The same measure that would freeze Pell grants also proposes modest increases in the amount of money students can borrow at low, guaranteed rates from the federal government. <

Since 1986, Stafford loan limits for freshmen have been frozen at $2,625, and for sophomores at $3,500. The proposal would up the first-year limit to $3,500 and the second year to $4,500. <

But the measure, now working its way through Congress, likely won't be passed until 2006, said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a higher education lobby that closely monitors the legislation. <

"It's a partisan election year," Hartle said. "Congress is finding it very difficult to get anything approved. This legislation could turn out to be a casualty of that." <

Contact Karen Rivedal at krivedal@madison.com or 252-6106. <