Sequestration Complicates College Aid Notices
"Colleges play a guessing game every spring when they tell prospective students how much financial aid is available to them. So the federal spending cuts that began with last Friday's sequestration are complicating an already complicated process even more," USA Today reports. "For some schools, the timing couldn't be worse. "We're hoping to send out awards this week, and before we hit the switch, we're going to have to make a decision," says Pamela Fowler, executive director of the office of financial aid at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. "You can make fewer awards or you can cut the amount of the award. Which do you do?" The Pell Grant, the signature federal program that provides billions of dollars to low-income students, will remain untouched until at least the 2014-15 academic year. Facing cuts of about 5% in the coming year are a handful of smaller programs. … Schools typically send financial aid information to prospective students this time of year to help them decide whether they can afford to enroll in the fall. Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, is advising colleges to include caveats about the sequestration."
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