Enrollment is up, financial aid at risk

In a world of deadlines, financial aid is no different. All students applying for financial aid need to be extra cautious of deadlines this year.

“Students absolutely have to meet deadlines,” said Agnes Canedo, director of financial aid. “It’s very important to apply early and have your verification in early also. As of last week, anyone who hadn’t paid past due accounts of $200 or more lost their financial aid.”

She added that students that were not eligible at the time of disbursement had their state and institutional grants canceled. The priority deadline for financial aid is March 15 and the verification deadline, which was June 30, has been moved up to June 1. Last year Central Washington University dispursed $101 million in financial aid. CWU has spent $129 million this quarter alone with an increase of 25 percent more applicants in comparison to last year.

“There are more students, more people applying for aid,” Canedo said. “It’s the first time we’ve run out of money this quickly in a decade. It’s bothersome but we’re still here trying to do the best we can with the resources we have available.”

As of today, 4,873 students are receiving some form of financial aid. Of these, 1,014 are receiving merit-based scholarships and grants, even though the amount of money each individual receives on a merit-based scholarship has been reduced. Institutional aid ran out in late July.

Canedo expressed her concerns about the consequences that this may bring forth.

“You have to be careful financially because you’re not going to get full support for the number of students that you have,” Canedo said. “There are worries about enough classes and enough support services to adequately serve the students.”

Kelley Cadman, Research Analyst for Central Washington University’s Institutional Research department, notes that universities always experience high enrollment rates during fall quarter.

“Fall quarter is considered our peak enrollment,” Cadman said. “It’s not an uncommon nation-wide trend and is consistently the highest enrollment for the year in most universities across the country.”

Even so, the university admitted almost 11,000 students and is being paid by the state for only about 8,500 of these. The school has budgeted for 9,200 full-time equivalent students (FTE).

“There are misconceptions when it comes to FTE,” Cadman said. “FTE is the full time equivalent number based on credit loads not headcounts. So say there’s a student that comes in and takes one or two classes. They’re not considered or counted as an FTE but are still included in the total head count.”

Every year, Institutional Research releases a Trends in State-Funded Enrollment Report, but because the Public Centralized Higher Education Enrollment System is currently being revised at the state level, the report for this year is not yet available.

“We are aware that it is going to be higher than what we budgeted for but that was anticipated for by the administration. I think they were counting on tuition dollars but I’m not sure,” Cadman said.

Canedo considers that the university was probably trying to serve a purpose in the state.

“A lot of other schools closed their doors,” Canedo said. “When University of Washington and Western Washington University would not take more students than they were budgeted for, Central did not do that.”

Funds for financial aid awards will not be available again until next fall quarter. If students have not received their aid yet their only options are pell grants, foundation scholarships (CWU awards individual department scholarships yearly, i.e Music Scholarship etc.) and loans.

When asked if she felt that the Financial Aid department had overcommitted in the amount of awards offered, Canedo replied, “We’re right on target but we have awarded all the aid that’s available.”

As of right now, 4,873 students are receiving financial aid, that’s almost half of all enrolled students. After financial aid reductions in merit-based scholarships, 1,014 students are receiving merit-based aid. A student that might have received aid for full tuition might now be receiving $3,600 or less than that depending on the individual case.

“We spent the same amount of money but we tried to spread it around,” Canedo said. “Give students less money but give money to more students.”

When students drop their classes, choose to go to other schools, or fall into academic suspension they lose their financial aid awards, that money is then routed to other students.

“Worst case scenario is that spring quarter aid gets reduced if there are insufficient funds, but as of right now I can’t imagine having to cancel spring aid,” Canedo said. “I doubt that action will be necessary.”