- The FFELP loan program was eliminated in favor of Federal Direct Loans.
- The State of Missouri cut the Access Missouri Grant (AMG) and Bright Flight Scholarship by $30 million dollars. Instead of students receiving a maximum $4,600 at private schools in AMG, all eligible students received $1,900. Bright Flight awards were cut from $2,000 to $1,500.
- More families are considered to have "financial need" according to their FAFSAs. Slightly more than 1 in 4 WJC students are eligible for the Federal Pell Grant in 2010 at 28% of the student body.
- Even with the cuts to state funding, MO residents were still deemed to have "financial need" with 2 in 5 WJC students from MO being eligible for the Access MO Grant.
Obviously all of this is caused by the state of the economy. But that hasn't stopped WJC from trying to help. In 2009, a first-year student at WJC received, on average, $18,302 in gift assistance. That year, the comprehensive cost (tuition, fees, room and board) was $31,000. This means that, on average, a first year student in 2009 was only responsible for $12,698. For those of you who like sales, think of it like a 59% off sign. Now obviously, not everyone qualified for this type of financial assistance, but it helps make a point that we're trying to make an education possible for everyone.
While we're in the process of calculating these same figures for the 2010 first-year class, it's safe to say that a similar kind of action was taken to discount the total cost of attending college for students with financial need.
So looking forward to 2011, how do students still help lower the cost of a college education? In addition to filing the FAFSA on time, the most often overlooked source of free financial aid is private scholarship funding from organizations. There are millions of scholarships out there for the picking, that often times never have an applicant much less a recipient. Now, obviously a million scholarships is a bit intimidating and often times the hoops to jump through aren't justifiable. But, it's still a source of free funding and at the WJC financial aid website there is an expansive listing of scholarship opportunities for interested students. All it takes is time and effort.
