UNC-CH students could lose need-based aid from the state

RALEIGH — Students at UNC-system schools with the highest tuition rates, including UNC-CH, could receive less need-based financial aid from the state as early as next year, officials said Tuesday in a presentation to legislators in the N.C. General Assembly.

Steve Brooks, executive director of the N.C. State Education Assistance Authority, presented three recommendations from a work group of state officials — representing the UNC system, N.C. Community Colleges and the state’s fiscal research division — for simplifying and consolidating state-funded financial aid.

One recommendation was to consolidate three existing state sources of financial aid into one and set new standards for determining a student’s eligibility for aid.

With these new standards — which would be based on the amount the state expects a family to contribute for tuition instead of a student’s need relative to tuition — UNC-CH students could receive less state-funded aid.

Preliminary simulations indicate that UNC-CH students could lose as much as $2.6 million in state grant funding, said Shirley Ort, associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid at UNC-CH and a member of the work group.

Also, if the state expects the family contribution per year to exceed $15,000, or if the total family income is expected to be $90,000 or above, the student would not be eligible for need-based aid from the state.

“I can’t say that every student would be absolutely protected from the change, but that will be the intent,” Brooks said.

The consolidation would establish a foundation of state-funded aid that campuses can supplement, said Bruce Mallette, senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs for the UNC system and a member of the work group.

If this recommendation is implemented, the UNC system and the state community college system would receive the same amount of funding for the first year, Mallette said.

In subsequent years, the presidents of each system would make a joint request for higher education funding instead of making individual requests for UNC-system need-based aid and community college grants, he said.

The work group said it wanted the recommendations to be put into effect beginning with the 2011-12 academic year, but the legislature has yet to make a decision on when the recommendations will be implemented.

“There may be some short-term hurt for some students, but the campuses hopefully have enough funds to help them,” Brooks said.

State education officials are still conducting simulations to predict how specific campuses will be impacted by this change in allocation methods.

Ort said that the simulations done so far indicate that some students at the University and other UNC-system schools with higher tuition rates would lose funding while students at other institutions would gain funding.

UNC-CH directs 38 percent of tuition revenue to provide financial aid for students it deems needy, Ort said.

The University’s definition of needy students is different from the state’s, so UNC-CH might be giving aid to students who receive no aid from the state, she said.

“We’re not in a position to lose this funding because we need every dollar of it to fund our students and their needs right now,” Ort said.

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