Until Steve Caruso receives his financial aid award from Syracuse University in late March, he doesn't know what to expect.
He's always wanted to get into the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, but he has already been accepted to the University of Connecticut, where the public university tuition is reasonable.
"I really wanted to get into Newhouse, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen," said Caruso, a senior at Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington, Conn. "I think that if there's a lot of money for financial aid at SU, it would probably help my decision."
Caruso is new to the financial aid process and is unsure how much aid the university will give him based off his family's upper-middle-class standing. Caruso filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms and the College Scholarship Service Profile required at SU to apply for financial aid by Feb. 1, the deadline for first-year and transfer students to file the forms.
More than 10,000 prospective students will play the waiting game until the end of March, when they will be notified of their financial aid awards.
But it could be worth the wait — the university will provide more undergraduate financial aid for the 2011-12 school year than it did for the current school year, said Gwenn Judge, director of the Office of Budget and Planning, in an e-mail.
The increase in financial aid is mainly because more students will be entering in fall 2011 than leaving this spring, Judge said. The university will have more revenue from undergraduate tuition with this increase in students, she said.
Judge said there is no estimate of the amount of 2011-12 undergraduate financial aid available yet. SU reported $172.9 million in undergraduate financial aid for the 2010-11 school year, according to the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget. The budget is based on a university fiscal year, from July 1 to June 30.
SU plans to admit 12,500 students and eventually enroll 3,350 freshmen for fall 2011, said Don Saleh, vice president for enrollment management.
Although the dollar amount of financial aid will increase, the percent of the university's budget dedicated to financial aid is expected to stay about the same, Saleh said.
The university reported $461.9 million in revenue from undergraduate tuition for the current school year, according to the 2011 budget. The approximately $173 million provided by the university in financial aid is more than 37 percent of the tuition amount it took in.
Over the past five fiscal years, including this year, the university has increased the amount of financial aid given to undergraduate students. SU reported more revenue from undergraduate tuition every year since the 2006-07 budget was released.
The trend will continue this year.
"As in the past few years, the university's financial aid budget will increase to the amount necessary to meet the financial needs of our students," said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice president for enrollment management and director of scholarships and student aid, in an e-mail.
SU has received about 12,000 FAFSA forms and approximately 10,000 CSS Profile forms as of Tuesday, said Kaye DeVesty, director of the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs. SU requires both forms, so the roughly 10,000 prospective students who filed the CSS Profile also filed the FAFSA, she said.
For the 2011-12 school year, SU is participating solely in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan program, offered to universities by the U.S. Department of Education, DeVesty said.
The program offers low interest rates, generous repayment benefits and reasonable borrowing limits, she said. Private education loans have higher interest rates than the direct program, DeVesty said.
And more good news may be on the way for students, she said.
On Monday, President Barack Obama proposed a 2012 Department of Education budget that would retain the maximum Pell grant — which provides federal aid to low-income undergraduates — at $5,550 per student, according to an article published in The New York Times on Tuesday.
Other aspects are taken into consideration during the financial aid process, including how many siblings students have in college, DeVesty said. If students decide not to fill out the FAFSA, SU can't determine what to offer them in financial aid, she said.
Returning students for fall 2011 can expect similar financial aid amounts to what they received this year, provided the information on their FAFSA and CSS Profile stays nearly the same, DeVesty said. Returning students are required to file the two forms by April 15 and will receive their financial aid notifications in June.
DeVesty said her office tells students that filing the forms is a requirement, and she sends her staff into the Syracuse community to help students fill out the forms. It's a struggle to get students to complete the forms because the first time filling them out can be a daunting experience, she said.
Jared Kissler, a senior at Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, N.J., said he didn't apply for financial aid because his father is funding his college education.
Kissler, who applied to SU early decision and was accepted into the College of Visual and Performing Arts, said he doesn't know if his family income would've gotten him any financial aid even if he had applied. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have liked to receive any.
"I guess it would help," he said. "Obviously, any money helps."
source:dailyorange
