Need-based grants for PA. College Students to be Cut by Corbett Budget

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/03/pa_gov_tom_corbetts_budget_wou.html

Excerpts:

"The average state grant to college students would decrease by $158 under Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed $19 million cut for the need-based grant program in his 2012-13 budget proposal, officials from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency told the House Appropriations Committee. That decrease would be even sharper if PHEAA did not contribute $50 million from its student loan servicing earnings that it expects to be prepared to offer to supplement the $361.9 million that Corbett proposes for the grant program.

Rep. Steve Samuelson, D-Northampton, suggested the Legislature ought to find that additional money for the grant program. “Certainly the governor’s proposal to decrease your funding, I think, is unacceptable,” he said.

To make up a reduction in grant amounts, some students will have to resort to more borrowing. During a budget hearing earlier in the day with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, Clarion University student government leader Joanna Catalano spoke of the difficulties that students at the state universities had in covering this year’s 7.5 percent tuition increase. "