A pair of UW-Madison experts on student financial aid said Wednesday President Bush's proposed 2006 budget would eliminate several important aid programs and drastically cut funding to others.
Steve Van Ess, director of the UW-Madison Office of Student Financial Services, and Rhonda Norsetter, director of Federal Government Relations, said instead of new money, new rules and regulations would be added to financial aid programs.
Federal financial aid consists of three categories of assistance: campus-based programs such as Perkins Loans, Pell Grants and federal Family Educational Loans, which include Stafford Loans.
Norsetter said one component of the Bush plan is to increase Pell Grant awards by $100 for each of the next five years. However, to fund this increase, the budget would eliminate the Perkins Loan program.
\We're probably one of the biggest Perkins lenders in the country, so to talk about giving up that loan program is huge and we're going to work really hard to not let that happen,"" Norsetter said.
According to Van Ess, an important source of funding for Perkins Loans is a revolving fund containing money received when graduates pay back loans. Money from this revolving fund is then used to award Perkins Loans to new students. Van Ess said UW-Madison was given $100,000 in new Perkins funds last year and lent out $17 million.
The proposed changes would force UW-Madison to pay back the roughly $50 million the school has collected in this fund over the next 10 years.
""Any deletions or additions or changes or new bells and whistles to these programs are very important to us,"" Van Ess said.
Bush's plan would increase loan limits, but cut the Talent Search, Upward Bound and GEAR UP programs, aimed at helping first-generation college students.
Norsetter said due to the economy, there is little money for improvements in domestic programs. However, she added, due to the popularity and support of financial aid programs among Democrats and Republicans, there will be significant pressure to keep the programs funded.
""These suggestions that are made here, the positives are modest and the negatives are pretty serious,"" she said.
Sara Rab, UW-Madison assistant professor of educational policy studies, said the government is ""playing Robin Hood"" by taking money allocated for high school students attending college and using it to improve high schools.
""What you're going to have is well-prepared students who can't afford to go,"" Rab said.
