College Aid Cuts Will Send Parents and Students Scrounging
"College students dependent on work-study programs and federal grants will have a hard time making up for reduced funding in the new school year as federal budget cuts take hold," Reuters reports. "The so-called sequester officially kicked in on Friday, stripping millions of dollars from several financial aid programs that colleges and universities rely on to entice students. The biggest cuts - about $86 million - will be to the Federal Work-Study (FWS) and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) programs, which help low-income students pay for undergraduate education, according to data from the Office of Management and Budget. … "Students and parents will start getting their award letters in the coming weeks, and presumably (the cuts are) just going to create more uncertainty for them," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). Many schools, he said, had been notified of the association's tentative expectations before Congress failed to beat its March 1 deadline but may have already sent out award letters. After the cuts are implemented, Draeger said, parents and students could be forced to take out more loans at a time when student loan debt is already a growing crisis."
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