Streamlining Financial Aid in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board, the state’s agency administering need-based and merit-based financial aid programs, was recently tasked with forming a commission on financial aid consolidation and modernization. The commission had two primary charges:

(1)    Explore consolidating all state need-based grants into one program.

(2)    Study options for providing grants to students attending college less than half-time.

The current system of need-based grants has separate grants for four different sectors of Wisconsin higher education: the University of Wisconsin System (UWS), the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS), the state’s tribal colleges, and the private, non-profit sector (WAICU).  Sadly, HEAB’s final report, which was recently released, failed to streamline the complicated financial aid system in Wisconsin. Each of the four sectors’ grants currently has separate pools of funding, and the report encourages this practice to continue.

The current system of awarding grants by sector needs to be revamped. Buried on page 42 of the report is the current distribution of funding by sector:

This distribution makes absolutely no sense, in both the percent of eligible students awarded grant money (due to budget constraints) and the maximum award. I can’t speak to the needs of students attending the tribal colleges due to my lack of knowledge of these institutions and the students’ other financial aid awards, but it seems logical to have the same percentage of students receive need-based aid across systems. Given the lower cost of tuition for the technical colleges, I can see why they are receiving smaller grants.

I also don’t see a compelling reason for the state to give more aid to students attending private colleges than those attending public colleges. It is true that the state saves money if a student attends a private college (by being able to appropriate less money for the public sector), but I seriously doubt that students will change their decision to attend a private college if their grant aid is cut by about $500. This is especially the case since some students attending private colleges can receive need-based aid even if they are ineligible for the federal Pell Grant, which is not the case for public colleges.

The report also called for the status quo regarding the lack of eligibility for state grants if a student attended college less than half-time (five or fewer credits per semester). This would only be reversed if each sector supported changing the eligibility rules, sufficient funding became available, and HEAB had additional staff to monitor the additional students, conditions which are unlikely to be met anytime soon.

In my view, the commission completely failed to respond to its charge as little was done to streamline financial aid in Wisconsin or fix persistent inequities in the funding system. The Legislature should seriously consider combining all need-based grant programs into one pot even though the stakeholders on the committee disagree.

Author: Robert

I am an a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who studies higher education finance, accountability policies and practices, and student financial aid. All opinions expressed here are my own. View all posts by Robert