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State and institutional grants for students at Iowa public universities have been declining for the past two years, but student support is no less.
State and institutional grants to undergraduate and graduate students at Iowa public universities have declined for the second consecutive year, according to the Iowa State Board of Regents’ annual grant report.
Driven by the decline in enrollments, grant funding fell from $ 1.09 billion last year to $ 1.06 billion. Senior Communications Director of the Regents Josh Lehman wrote in an email at The Daily Iowan that funding from private companies and corporations has increased in recent years.
As before reported until TUE, The state institutions of the Council of Regency reported a decrease in total enrollment of 4.4 percent for the academic year 2020 compared to autumn 2019.
The University of Iowa saw total enrollments decreased by 792 students, a 2.5 percent decrease from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020, the annual regent enrollment report called.
Lehman wrote that the decrease in total allowance is due to the decrease in enrollment, not a decrease per scholarship allowance, and will not affect the allowance per student.
“Although fewer students attend Regent Universities, the average amount of funding per student in 2019-20 is slightly higher than 2017-2018,” Lehman wrote.
In the 2019-2020 academic year, UI granted students $ 102 million in grants, down $ 8 million from the previous year, the report said.
According to the funding report, 80 percent of institutional support for students is given in the form of scholarships or grants. The UI provided $ 81 million in university scholarships and grants to undergraduate students from 2019-2020.
“Universities remain the single largest source of all scholarships and grants available to students,” the report said.
In June 2020, the regents agreed to stop studying for the fall semester and later voted for it continue the freezing into the spring semester.
UI Junior and co-administrator of the Hawkeyes for Fair Tuition group on Facebook Braden Chick said many students he knows have to take out private loans or Parent PLUS loans if they are not getting financial assistance.
“That’s a lot of money to pay off the student loan debt,” he said. “My parents are burdened because we have Parent PLUS loans and that worries me. It worries them. “
According to the UI Office of Financial Aid website, A Parent PLUS Loan is “a credit-based loan and eligibility is determined by subtracting the financial assistance offered from the student’s estimated cost of attendance.”
Chick said he thought tuition fees were too high for a state facility in the state. His Facebook group Hawkeyes for Fair Tuition is campaigning for a cut in tuition fees at the UI.
UI Junior Cade Gerlach, the co-administrator of the Facebook group, said that due to this pandemic, students were unable to get stimulus checks because they are addicted.
“The students who visit our university are among the people who have been hardest hit by the pandemic,” said Gerlach.
Lehman wrote that reducing and managing student debt was a focus of the regents and regent universities. Every university requires students to take a financial literacy course, he wrote, and provides financial advice to students when they need to consider financial assistance.
UI Director of Media Relations Anne Bassett wrote in an email to the DI That the UI Office of Financial Aid is committed to helping students and that the office will continuously exchange information throughout the year explaining the grant application process.
According to the report, 42.6 percent of students graduated from the UI with no debt. The average debt amount for students who graduate in debt at UI from 2019 to 2020 was $ 25,630 for residents of Iowa and $ 31,205 for non-state students.
Lehman wrote that the students attending regent public institutions graduate with less debt than any other public institution in the state and compare favorably with other public universities in the country.
“A key factor in reducing student debt is time to graduation, and that has been decreasing at our universities,” Lehman wrote.
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