Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504170047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The loss of such programs as Stafford Loans, wherein the federal government pays interest on loans while students are in college, would affect more than 65 percent of the 25,000 graduate and undergraduate students at Virginia Tech, the Abingdon Democrat said at a news conference Friday at the university.
Cuts to student financial aid would produce "huge student body enrollment losses at schools like Virginia Tech," he said.
Just last week, news emerged of a $12.2 million shortfall at Tech next year, caused primarily by a drop in out-of-state student enrollment and cuts in state support. Tech has lost $40 million in state funds since 1990.
Reductions in federal student aid would only make matters worse, Boucher said.
"As part of their budget plan, the new congressional leadership has proposed eliminating more than $12 billion over a five-year period in federal support for student financial aid, which enables students to obtain a college education. If enacted, the proposal would place higher education beyond the reach of thousands of 9th District residents each year who could no longer afford ever-increasing tuition costs."
Among threatened programs:
One of two Stafford Loan programs. Boucher predicted that loan payments for students who can afford to stay in school will go up nearly 30 percent.
Perkins Loans, low-interest loans that aid the neediest students. More than 2,076 of the region's college students received loans of $1,285 last year.
The College Work-Study Program, through which the federal government pays 75 percent of students' wages for campus or community jobs.
Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, cash grants to low-income students. Of 900,000 such grants last year, 1,355 went to students attending college in Southwest Virginia.
Students in this part of the state would "suffer disproportionately" compared with those in more affluent areas and would be denied the long-held American aspiration of going to college, Boucher said.
He pointed out that many of today's leaders went through school on the strength of federal aid, and said "tomorrow's leaders are in school today because of student loans."
The Republican proposal to cut federal student aid programs will be voted out of committee soon and will be debated early next month.
Boucher predicted that once the public becomes aware of the plan to cut the programs, people will rally against it.
And, he said, five years of cuts to Virginia's colleges and universities have helped prompt him to speak out against the federal cuts.
"I think this would have a devastating effect on colleges where [students] depend on student financial aid," he said.
by CNB