[Oasfaa] 2010-11 Funding Status of State Regents' Financial Aid Programs

[Fair, Bryce]

To Financial Aid Officers:
 
As you are aware, there remains significant budget uncertainty for
2010-11 for all state-funded agencies and programs as the Oklahoma
Legislature continues to struggle with a major revenue shortfall.  As
part of the discussion with legislative appropriation committees this
spring, the State Regents have been asked to determine the impact of a
possible 10% cut in state appropriations to most programs due to
continuing state revenue shortfalls.  

 

Final appropriation levels may not be known until the legislative
session concludes at the end of May.  The State Regents are scheduled to
meet on May 28 to determine final allocations of state appropriations to
programs and institutions. 

 

In this context, we want to provide you as much information as we can,
even though that information is not final.  Following are brief
summaries of the current funding status of the major financial aid
programs administered by the State Regents.

 

 

Oklahoma's Promise - Fortunately, the 2007 legislation creating a
dedicated funding process for Oklahoma's Promise has already set aside
full funding of $57 million for the program for 2010-11.

 

 

Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grant (OTAG) -- During the Regent's Update at the
annual OASFAA conference we projected a possible FAFSA filing cutoff for
2010-2011 OTAG awards of April 1st.  The April 1st date assumes no
reduction in current state funding for the program.  The primary reason
for the possible April 1st deadline in 2010 compared to an April 30
deadline in 2009 is a significant increase of 17%-19% in potentially
eligible OTAG recipients compared to the same time period last year.

 

If OTAG state funding is cut by 10%, it would also result in the loss of
federal LEAP and SLEAP matching funds.  The total loss in funding for
OTAG would be about $2.8 million ($1.9 million state funding + $875,000
LEAP/SLEAP).  Under this scenario, we expect we would have to move the
FAFSA filing cutoff back to about March 25th.

 

As you are aware, an official OTAG application cutoff cannot be set
until the Legislature has made appropriations and those appropriations
have been allocated by the State Regents.  We plan to announce the
official cutoff date shortly after the Regent's May 28 meeting.  In the
meantime, it is critical that you clearly communicate to potential OTAG
awardees that final eligibility will be contingent upon the ultimate
level of funding available.

 

 

Academic Scholars Program - The current appropriation base for the
Academic Scholars Program is $8.6 million.  In addition, the program has
a very modest trust fund that provides a small amount of reserves.  A
10% cut would equate to $860,000 and could require further depletion of
the trust fund to ensure full funding of awards in 2010-11.

 

 

Oklahoma Tuition Equalization Grant (OTEG) - The current base
appropriation for OTEG is about $3.8 million.  However the amount
actually allocated to the program in 2009-10 was $4.0 million due to an
additional $200,000 in prior year carryover funds.  The carryover funds
have been used in 2009-10.  Consequently, a 10% cut from the $3.8
million level would result in an allocation of about $3.4 million for
2010-11.

 

 

Concurrent Enrollment Tuition Waiver reimbursements and National Guard
Tuition Waivers reimbursements for state system institutions - the
reimbursements for these two programs are administered directly by the
State Regents Fiscal Division.  Questions related to the potential
funding situation of these programs are best directed through your
institutional business officer to the Regents' Fiscal Division.

 

 

We sincerely regret the funding uncertainties our programs face this
year.  We hope this information provides some context as you approach
the coming school year.  We will try to provide additional updates as we
are able.

 
 
 
Bryce Fair
Associate Vice Chancellor for Scholarships & Grants
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
Phone:  405-225-9162
Fax:  405-225-9392
e-mail:  bfair at osrhe.edu <mailto:bfair at osrhe.edu> 
 
Mailing address:
P.O. Box 108850
Oklahoma City, OK  73101-8850
 
Street address:
655 Research Parkway, Suite 200
Oklahoma City, OK  73104
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/oasfaa/attachments/20100429/90941925/attachment.html