The state Senate and House have both released their recommended budgets for 2008 including about $3 million for student financial aid - but members of the Arizona Students' Association want more.
On May 17, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee released the state Senate's engrossed 2008 budget proposal, which includes $8.4 million in state-funded financial aid, an increase of $3.4 million from last year.
The state House engrossed budget proposal, released Mar 23, includes $8 million in financial aid, an increase of $3 million.
Both numbers fulfill the amount of financial aid requested by the Arizona Financial Aid Trust Fund - a partnership between the state and its students that allocates 1 percent of student tuition into the trust. The state then matches that contribution 2:1.
But neither of the proposed budgets meet the amount of financial aid - $13.4 million - requested by Gov. Janet Napolitano and the Arizona Board of Regents.
The Regents make up the body that sets tuition and fees for the three in-state universities.
Devin Mauney, undergraduate student government director of government relations and an ASA board member, said both USG and ASA - an organization that fights for financial aid for the instate universities - endorsed the amount the regents and governor requested.
"It's a good first step, because it fully funds the program [AFAT]," Mauney said of the Senate's recommended financial aid. "But originally we asked for more to offset the tuition increase."
ABOR approved a 5 percent tuition increase for the 2007-08 school year at its meeting Nov. 30.
That increases resident undergraduate tuition at the Tempe and Downtown campuses $230, for a total $4,821. Tuition at the Polytechnic and West campuses will be $4,620, an increase of $220. Nonresident undergraduate tuition at all campuses increased 7 percent to $16,853.
But Senate-recommended financial aid still fulfills AFAT, only the second year since the program began in 1989 that financial aid would be fully funded to the agreement's standards.
"If we end up with the amount in the senate budget, it's still a big victory," Mauney said.
Tiffany Troidl, the government affairs director for ASA, said students played a big part in lobbying the state legislature for financial aid, the organization's biggest issue.
Earlier in the year, students from all three instate universities sent more than 800 e-mails to their legislators urging them to increase financial aid, Troidl said.
Mauney said members of ASA have been working to increase state-based financial aid by hosting a lobby day, where more than 60 students from ASU and UA visited the legislative building downtown to fight for funding.
Some students have also gone down and talked to legislators about the issues, Mauney said.
But now that the spring semester is over, fewer students are taking action at the legislature.
"Mostly it's private conversations at this point between the Senate and House and governor's staff," Mauney said. "It's hard to have a big event."Labels: financial aid, free education, scholarship, student loans, study abroad |
