WASHINGTON — College students are appealing financial aid decisions this summer in unprecedented numbers, an outpouring of need that underscores how layoffs and pay cuts have battered household budgets in the past year.
Mick Gulli lost his job as a beverage distributor in May. He didn't know how he would send his middle daughter, Layne, back to Virginia Tech, where her junior year will cost $19,700 in tuition and fees, room and board, transportation and books. Then his wife saw personal-finance expert Suze Orman on The Oprah Winfrey Show, explaining how cash-strapped college students could appeal for more aid.
Gulli appealed, and Virginia Tech delivered: a package of $9,820 in grants and $6,500 in loans, thousands more than Layne would have received without an appeal.
"It was the best news we've had in quite a long time," said Gulli, of Roanoke County, Va., whose misfortune had deepened with the recent death of his father. "I can't tell you how important it is to us to get our daughter educated."
Appealing for more aid was a little-known and seldom-advertised option in higher education until this year. U.S. Education Department officials wrote to financial aid administrators in the spring, when most aid decisions are made, urging them to "reach out to your students ... particularly those who seem to have hit a rough patch, to make sure that they know there may be ways that you can help."
Because of lost income, many students qualify for more aid this fall than they were awardedthis spring. Aid formulas project a student's 2009 needs based on 2008 earnings.
"The best predictor usually is the previous year. Well, it isn't this year," said John DeCourcy, financial aid director at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.
The economic fallout, coupled with record college enrollment and the aid push by the Obama administration, sent appeals into overdrive.
"I'm seeing things I haven't seen in 20 years," said Sarah Bauder, financial aid director at the University of Maryland. One of her clients is the childof a real estate mogul who lost everything; another is a family fleeced in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Nationwide, appeals among students filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid totaled 106,189 so far this cycle and were on pace to exceed the 143,672 appeals filed in 2008-09. Appeals have risen steadily since 2007-08, when they totaled 112,407.
Families increasingly have stretched their finances to pay college tuition, which has been rising faster than inflation for years. But this year has been particularly difficult as college savings plans have tumbled amid stock market losses. Colleges expected that more students than usual would balk at attending, and they admittedslightly larger classes this year to compensate.
Aid appeals are arising from across the spectrum of salary and class. Students are appealing for aid at $8,000-a-year state schools and $30,000 private institutions alike.
Universities are hard-pressed this year to dole out more aid. State schools are being asked to make cuts. Private schools are coping with shrunken endowments.
Some types of aid are essentially unlimited, guaranteed by the federal government to any student who demonstrates sufficient need. Colleges can offer, for example, a theoretically endless supply of federal Pell grants and Stafford loans, both needbased.
But most families appealing for aid want grants, not loans, and Pell grants max out at $5,350. Students seeking more substantial funds must tap the college's aid budget. Some schools have set aside emergency reserves to cover the onslaught of appeals.
Help is not available to everyone. Students who appeal earlier in the year are more likely to get it, aid officials said. Juniors and seniors, for whom the end of the journey is near, might get preference over freshmen. Families with diminished salaries get priority over those who have taken a hit in stock funds or home values. A family whose income has dwindled from $300,000 to $70,000 probably won't get help ahead of one whose earnings have gone from $80,000 to $20,000.
Front Section, Pages 13 on 08/23/2009