Students struggling to pay their way through MSU could benefit from the $787 billion stimulus package that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday. But questions still remain about how the funding will affect tuition costs.
About $32 billion of the package is expected to go toward higher education. Part of that will be used to increase the maximum Pell Grant from $4,731 to $5,350 in 2009, and to $5,550 in 2010, according to The Associated Press.
The Pell Grant is a form of student aid for lower-income students.
Val Meyers, an MSU associate director of financial aid, said this means that the most needy students at MSU will receive more grant funds.
“Either they’re going to increase the amount of money that each student that qualifies can get, or they may also expand the number of students that can get Pell,” she said. “We don’t know that for sure yet.”
There were 7,004 students at MSU who received Pell Grants during the 2007-08 school year, Meyers said.
While the total amount of education funding in the package has been finalized, there still is the question of how it will be distributed.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has requested that state universities freeze tuition in exchange for additional state funding from the stimulus package, but lawmakers said they could not comment on whether the amount of funding Michigan will receive is enough to cover the proposed freeze.
Meyers said if MSU chooses to raise tuition, the university likely will offer increased financial aid in addition to the Pell Grant increase.
“We have always had an increase in financial aid from MSU that is at least as much as tuition goes up,” she said.
The original version of the stimulus bill included a provision to increase the amount of money that could be given out through loans, but that provision was removed from the final bill.
Matt Marsden, spokesman for state Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, said although higher education should be a priority for everyone in office, he was not disappointed that the money for loans was removed from the bill.
The Pell Grant increase should be sufficient to assist students, he said.
“At some point, we have to remember this money is all coming out of taxpayers’ pockets,” he said. “We’ll have to pay it all back.”
However, state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, said he would have liked to see an increase in both the Pell Grant and student loans in the final package.
Students must be independents to receive the Pell Grant, and the loans do not ask for this requirement, he said. This means students whose parents claim them as dependents will not benefit from the increased funding.
“I think we could all find things we wish were in the final version that are not, but I’m just happy there’s a stimulus package,” he said.
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