Students to benefit from Obama's stimulus package
BROWNSVILLE - For hundreds of students attending the college and university here, the cost of education is getting more and more affordable - thanks to President Barack Obama's multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package.
The package includes an increase of $3 billion for the Federal Pell Grant Program.
That means an increase of as much as $500 a year for Pell Grant recipients at the University of Texas-Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.
The program, largely designed to provide grants to low-income undergraduate students, is the most widely used form of assistance at UTB/TSC.
"We are very excited and we are hoping that it will only get better for education," Mari F. Chapa, director of the financial aid office at UTB/TSC, said. "When the country is in such financial straits, a good education can help people better themselves."
With an enrollment of nearly 12,800 students at UTB/TSC, some 8,000 are Pell Grant recipients. Combined, they receive an estimated $24 million a year.
The minimum amount a student has been eligible to receive is $609 a year, while the maximum has been $4,731 a year, information provided by Chapa's office shows.
The maximum now increases to $5,231.
"We hope this is going to stimulate more people to seek a degree in higher education," Chapa said.
Under the program, each student gets a set amount of money as determined by criteria set by the Department of Education. It includes a student's expected family contribution, enrollment status, cost of education and whether a student attends full time or part time.
Chapa said about 80 percent of UTB/TSC's students receive some sort of financial assistance, but that more is needed because the economic reality of this area is different than in most other places of the country.
Although the new allocation to the Pell Grant program is a done deal, Chapa said they are also awaiting word on another aspect of school funding - the Federal Work-Study Program.
She said UTB/TSC has 350 students enrolled in FWS, but funding for the program has been stagnant the past 15 years.
In spite of that, Chapa said UTB/TSC is probably one of the most affordable schools in the state of Texas, if not the country.
Tuition and fees for a full-load semester, or 12 or more credit hours, stands today at $2,177, or $4,354 per year.
Financial aid is crucial for students like Jesse Perales and Luis Alberto Uresti.
Perales and Uresti said they each get more than $1,000 per year in Pell Grant money.
"In addition to that," Uresti, a third-year pre-med student, said, "I am also getting a student loan."
However, there will be those like Kevin Clarke who will not qualify.
Clarke, who plans to enter the school's nursing program next year, said he doesn't qualify for grant money.
"I could use some of that money if the criteria were different," he said. "It's a good thing to help the poor, but why does the middle class always tend to get squeezed in the middle?"
