A bill that could be taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this fall includes severe financial aid cuts to Northeastern, including $2.2 million in student work-study funds and significant cuts to both the Pell and Perkins loan programs.
The bill, known as the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, could be voted on as early as the end of September, following the Congressional recess that ends after Labor Day.
If passed, Northeastern would be the school hit hardest by the cuts, according to a Boston Globe report. Cuts to other loan programs include a $1.4 million shrinking of Northeastern’s SEOG grant, which goes to Pell grant recipients, and a reduction of the Perkins loan fund, said Dean of Student Financial Service Seamus Harreys.
Harreys said the cuts would not take effect until 2008, and would be implemented over a 10-year period.
“The situation isn’t so dire that the funds will disappear tomorrow,” Harreys said. “Every two years until 2016, Northeastern will face a 20 percent cut in the funds.”
Student work-study is funded by federal grant money Northeastern receives from a pool of government dollars allocated every year to institutions across the country. If Northeastern were to lose its piece of that funding, Harreys said Northeastern would be forced to either cut the number of work-study students in half, or halve the amount of money students receive from working.
Over the past three years, despite more students going to college and the rising cost of tuition, Congress has voted to keep the work-study pool of funds the same, Harreys said.
To account for the growth that has taken place in colleges in the southern and western portions of the country, the current bill proposes taking funds out of the steadier student populations at schools in other regions, and reallocating them to the areas where there has been more growth.
Many in the House, including Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), have reacted to the cuts by proposing more funds for the federal financial aid program. Tierney proposed an amendment while the bill was still in committee to reduce the effects of the cuts to New England schools.
“When you have the same pie, the slices are always going to get thinner,” Tierney said. “We think there should be a bigger pie.”
Though Tierney’s amendment was defeated, he said there could still be a fight on the House floor to increase the allocation funds. However, with Republicans, who have received a presidential directive to control spending in Congress because of the skyrocketing federal deficit in charge of the House, Tierney said the bill may not even get to be voted on.
“The question right now is whether or not the rules committee allows it to go to the floor,” he said, referring to the House Rules Committee, which sets the calendar of legislation to be considered.
The bill would also have to be passed in the Senate, and reconciled between the two Houses in a conference committee before it reaches the President’s desk to be signed into law.
Despite the long road ahead, some university departments which depend on work-study students are already fearing the cuts.
The library, which employs up to 300 work-study students in the fall and spring semesters, would bear a huge burden if the cuts were implemented, said University Libraries Dean Edward Warro.
“We rely on our work studies very heavily. They handle most of the clerical work,” he said. “They really fill a critical role in operating the library.”
Dirk Rodricks, assistant director of operations in the Curry Student Center, said the student center would face a similar predicament. With recently increased hours, the student center is already depending on work-studies.
“Work studies handle most of the coverage for keeping our doors open,” Rodricks said. “If there were cuts, we would need to look at other means to maintain our level of service.”
For students, the cuts would be equally frustrating at a university where many students are guaranteed work-study freshman year, then lose it for the duration of their tenure.
Alex Knowlton, a middler music business major who used his work-study funds working at the library freshman year, said he was fortunate to gain a part-time job there after losing work-study.
“Nothing changed as part of my job status or my parents’ [job status], but I lost it anyway,” he said. “I snuck into the part-time job because I had worked there, but I know a lot of people who didn’t get the part-time job. By having that job instead of work-study, I took it away from someone else.”
Others who have maintained work-study say the job is a great help to them.
“If I didn’t have work-study, there’s no way I could hold down a regular job and be a student,” said Christopher Haner, a middler political science and history major, who uses work-study funds to pay for food, among other expenses. “College is expensive enough, they’ve got to give us some sort of break.”
While the vote is not scheduled yet, Harreys said students could have a say in the final outcome in the bill by contacting their local representative. With the major brunt of the cuts balanced between Democratic and Republican districts, both he and Tierney said a large number of Republicans could still be swayed.
“It’s one thing when I speak for the students,” Harreys said. “It’s another thing when they speak for themselves.”