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Kelly Mori writes about health and higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2009 > June > 26 > Entry
Scholarships target of cuts
Clark State Community College officials say they are concerned about how changes to the Ohio College Opportunity Grant will affect their students.
In the past, the state grant was applied to a student’s tuition costs before any Federal Pell Grant monies were used. Because the OCOG was a tuition-only grant, students could use any excess Pell money to pay for books and other expenses such as child care and transportation.
Under changes in the state’s proposed biennial budget OCOG would be applied only after the Pell Grant and after what is determined to be a student’s expected family contribution (EFC).
If the Pell and EFC cover tuition, no OCOG money would be available.
Grant eligibility is also determined by the cost of attendance which would be less for Community College students than those attending a four-year school.
About 48 percent of Clark State’s students rely on the state and federal need-based grants to attend the college, said Kathy Klay, director of financial aid.
“It’s going to be a pretty big hit for our students,” she said.
Because many community college students are older with families they have used the additional money to supplement their living expenses while in school, said Joe Jackson Clark State’s vice president for business affairs.
“We’re worried about the potential impact,” he said. “We hope it doesn’t discourage students.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Paying for college
Comments
By Anon
June 28, 2009 9:51 PM | Link to this
Last week, at a fund-raiser, a state politician stated that an even worse scenario would be announced in the next two weeks. He stated that there would be no OCOG for anyone to award. Of course, him being a republican, he blamed it all on Strickland. But I ask, where did Strickland’s support for education go? Was that not one of his campaign promises? Or does he only see OSU and OU as educational entities? What are students, parents and schools going to do?By bill jenkins
July 18, 2009 2:20 PM | Link to this
what about the students that were already accepted for the grant and already enrolled in school fro spring and fall classes we have already budgeted around our grant money and took out loans ,i feel we should still recieve what we were already axcepted for and not have the rug pulled out fro under us with notice this latest acction by the government will put me on the streets and homeless with 3 children what am I supposed to do now and how am I going to be able to finish school and start a new carrier and what happenee to all the money the president released for higher education?