TEXAS reneges on financial aid

Paying for College
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<p>The Dallas Morning News reported today that the State of Texas will not fund a scholarship program this year although many incoming freshman students at UT-Austin and Texas A&M had already been informed that they would receive the approximately $5,000 (annual) scholarship/loan. </p>

<p>The program made the student an interest free $5,000 loan and FORGAVE the debt if the student maintained a B average and graduated in 4 years.</p>

<p>The reason was lack of funds and the number of students that had qualified. The State is also not going to be able to fund the scholarship to some students who had received it the year before.</p>

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<p>The sharks are circling. Do I hear lawsuit?</p>

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<p>Hard for me to imagine that the money won’t be found after taxpayers justifiably scream about this injustice.</p>

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<p>"
Thousands of students’ college loans fall through</p>

<p>A month before school starts, incoming freshmen told state lacks ‘B On Time’ funding
Dallas Morning News</p>

<p>This week – just a month before heading off to the University of Texas at Austin – Brad Barmer got an unwelcome surprise.</p>

<p>That $5,170 interest-free loan he was counting on this year? He won’t be getting it.</p>

<p>Instead, Mr. Barmer and some 700 other incoming freshmen at UT – and thousands more college-bound students across the state – won’t see a dime from the Texas “B On Time” loan program.</p>

<p>Just this month, the state notified college financial aid offices that the program doesn’t have enough money to go around. So new students must go without.</p>

<p>Colleges are now scrambling to tell students, many of whom have already paid admissions deposits and signed apartment leases.</p>

<p>Mr. Barmer said he and his future roommate, who’s in the same leaky financial boat, are upset…"
<a href=“http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/072107dntexcollegeloans.35bfd0b.html[/url]”>http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/072107dntexcollegeloans.35bfd0b.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Twenty years ago, Michigan was doing this … they would award competitive scholarships/tuition grants for the year, then decide halfway through that there wasn’t enough funding to pay for the second half of the year. I remember students scrambling to figure out how the heck they were going to come up with $1200 at the very last minute for their second semester bills. I don’t recall a single successful lawsuit. I imagine states have some type of wording in the scholarship bills they pass that allows them to make changes. I think it stinks, but it’s reality.</p>

<p>BTW, this is also how MI funds education. Our public schools have funding removed halfway through the school year, after budgets are set & money is already spent.</p>

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<p>The Dallas Morning News argued today that something needs to be done about this situation. It mentioned that the funding for grants (for low income students) had not be changed and observed that the in-state public school cost was now over $20,000 and the middle class needed a break.</p>

<p>Texas has really gotten itself in a bind. The legislature only meets every two years, so it is difficult to “get right on” a problem. </p>

<p>Also, Texas basically guarantees a spot in a state college for every student from Texas who graduates in the top 10% of his class in HS. Don’t ask. It has to do with a 5th Circuit ruling on affirmative action.</p>

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<p>***? I was awarded a B-on time loan for around 5k this year and im going to UT austin. Does this mean I will not be geting my money?</p>

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<p>pkdan1</p>

<p>I suggest that you call the financial aid department at UT to find out, but it looks that way. Then you might want to have the parents and you whip off a few letters to the GUV and assorted state “reps???” Seems its more acceptable to shaft you than the grant program.</p>

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<p>Some of the federal programs work the same: take the Byrd scholarships, for instance. Although we are happy that DS has been “awarded” the $1500 per year for the four years, it is all dependent on funding. Depending on who you talk to, funding is not yet allocated for next year, or it is allocated. We have our fingers crossed, but won’t count on it, as the Iraq war and all its permutations are expensive and longterm…</p>

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<p>UPDATE</p>

<p>The Dallas Morning News reported today that there had been sufficient additional money found to fund the 600 scholarships for present students who had received them last year BUT the approximately 6700 freshmen who were to get the $5,100 scholarship beginning this year are OUT of LUCK!</p>

<p>pkdan1 If this is correct, it looks like you get zip.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I just got the fin aid revision. Bye Bye B-On time loan. But they gave me a Texas Grant for 5k and they took out my Undergraduate tution grant of 3k. So I guess I only lost 3k…</p>

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<p>10% rule is legislative, not a 5th circuit ruling. Many legislators in rural and largely hispanic areas back it because it benefits their students.</p>

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<p>bandit_TX</p>

<p>According to Tyler Lewis (article dated July 11, 2007)</p>

<p>“The ‘Top 10 percent’ plan was adopted in 1997, after the federal appeals court decision in Hopwood v. Texas banned affirmative action programs in the state, and was designed to promote diversity at Texas state colleges and universities. Under the plan, Texas high school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class are automatically admitted to a state institution of their choice.” </p>

<p>Full article at :
<a href=“http://www.civilrights.org/press_room/buzz_clips/civilrightsorg-stories/texas-top-10-percent-plan.html[/url]”>http://www.civilrights.org/press_room/buzz_clips/civilrightsorg-stories/texas-top-10-percent-plan.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As this article acknowleges, the uncapped commitment to place all students in the top 10% of their class in a state college has taxed the system.</p>

<p>Prior to the 10% rule, the urban and/or surburban “prep” level public high schools (Highland Park, some Plano and Coppell just being a few examples in North Texas) funnelled UT-Austin etc. a great number of students with high stats (SAT’s, # of AP’s) many of whom could pay their own way. </p>

<p>Now it is the rank in the student’s class that is the “ticket” into the Texas state college system. That shifted the admitted students towards lower economic students. With more students accepted from lower income families due to the 10% rule, there is a greater demand for “aid.” </p>

<p>The 10% rule also created a greater need for the colleges to offer and require remedial classes to get many of the top 10% from non-prep public school systems up to a level where they could compete at the college level. This in part accounts for the substantail increase in the cost to go to these state schools and with rising costs it has become more difficult for the middle economic level students to afford college.</p>

<p>The legislature has seen fit this year to fund the grants for low income freshmen students but renege on the “loans” to middle class freshmen.</p>

<p>This was a direct result of Hopwood v. Texas. Before Hopwood, the system could prefer lesser qualified black student applicants over more qualified white and non protected non white applicants. Now, the system cannot take more qualified students of any race over those that were in the top 10% of a HS, even if less qualified.</p>

<p>The economic fallout of the change brought about by Hopwood v. Texas is what this thread is about.</p>

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<p>still i am smelling a lawsuit here…more of a class action lawsuit if everyone gets together on it…</p>

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<p>It may have been adopted after a particular court ruling, but it was not mandated and can be repealed anytime the legisature desires. Big difference from being court ordered.</p>

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<p>Bandit is right about the top-10% rule being legislative and not court-mandated. Not only that, but the Supreme Court effectively overruled Hopwood in the Michigan case (forget the name) which permits racial preferences. So top-10% was adopted as an anti-Hopwood measure, but then Hopwood went away a few years later. But by then top-10% was popular, and public sentiment in favor of top-10% now keeps it in place.</p>

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<p>**dt123 **and bandit_TX</p>

<p>OK, we all agree that in the inception the legislation for admission of the top 10% had to do with attempting to address the anti-affirmative action ruling in Hopwood. I never said that the 10% arrangement couldn’t be changed. </p>

<p>My point as the OP was that having a rule that the top 10% are “in” changes the economics of the state colleges. It increased the expenditures for remedial classes because many more students from non-college prep level HS are admitted under the rule. This contributes to the cost of college going up.</p>

<p>It also decreased the number of students who did not need any aid (generally the under-top 10% students from wealthy independent school districts). It increased the number of students who needed substantial aid (the 10% student from a low income family). </p>

<p>AND becaue this rule resulted in part in the very steep increase in the cost to attend the state colleges, it made it increasingly more difficult for the middle income student to afford. Then the “renege” was only on the aid to the middle income student. The wealthy can still afford college, the low income gets aid and the middle income gets the shaft.</p>

<p>THAT is what the thread is about.</p>

<p>Your thoughts on the 10% rule, other than “it is popular.” For instance. If you are correct that the affirmative action adressed in Hopwood has now been determined to be constitutionally permissible (a point I am not willing to concede), isn’t that form of social tinkering better, since the “old” way admission is generally linked to ability (unlike rank in class in a state where the disparitybetween the have and have not school districts is immense).</p>

<p>THAT’s what this thread is about.</p>

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<p>My thoughts?</p>

<p>Honestly, I don’t care so much about the top-10% rule anymore. The last of my three spawn is about to leave for her freshman year out of state. None went to UT, but UT was the safety school for all three, and I did have deep interest in how admissions worked for a long time. It is a constant subject of discussion among parents of high school students, a group from which I have now graduated.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, my view is tht UT does not seem to have been unduly harmed by the rule. The university is like a big mixing machine, taking the brightest kids from every community and mooshing them together for four years. There are societal benefits to that. </p>

<p>And it is no surprise that top-10% can’t be killed politically. Consider that only California and Texas are majority-minority states. How politically feasible would it have been to have UT be all-white? That is what you have had in no time if Hopwood had been not been countered. That is actually what we have now at Texas A&M.</p>

<p>The rule has been around long enough that Plano kids and parents have adapted. Will it kill some of them to go to Texas Tech instead? No.</p>

<p>The money issues seem solved by allowing the state universities to charge what they want to. It is now $20,000 a year to go to UT for a resident. The need to discount for disadvantaged kids is balanced by the Plano and Spring Branch kids that are happy to pay full sticker price.</p>

<p>The current kerfuffle about the B-on-time loans does not really have anything to do with the top-10% rule. As I understand it, Gov. Goodhair vetoed the bill that would fund them, along with a bunch of other popular bills, as a way to get back at the Ledge which embarassed him more than usual during the session that just ended.</p>

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<p>Well said. He also vetoed the aid bill for community and junior colleges. That is likely to affect far more disadvantaged kids.</p>