[Oasfaa] Federal budget request

[Schmerer, Mendy M. (HSC)]

If you did not yet see it, President Trump released his FY 2018 budget request<https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/11556/Trump_s_Fiscal_Year_18_Budget_Eliminates_SEOG_Reduces_FWS_and_Raids_Pell_Surplus>. While these are just requests, only affect discretionary funding and does not touch on mandatory spending, and would have a long way to go before anything is signed into law<https://www.nasfaa.org/federal_budget_appropriations>, the potential negative impact on the funding of federal aid programs is worrisome.

Our programs have been whittled away at with painful budgetary measures the last several years, and our students continue to feel the effects. If the true intent of the administration is to "focus on streamlining and simplifying funding for college," I am all for it. But, as aid administrators who see the impact on our students every single day, let's make a collective effort to remind our federal legislators that any streamlining and simplifying needs to be done in the process of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. Our aid programs need to be examined in a wholesale manner during reauthorization, not whittled and whacked at during some attempt to improve the bottom line for the purposes of a press release. Regardless of political party affiliation, I would venture to say that we can all agree that our students deserve an intentional examination of the programs.

Thanks,

Mendy Schmerer, M.Ed.
Assistant Director
Office of Student Financial Aid
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
1106 N. Stonewall, Rm 301
Oklahoma City, OK  73117
(405) 271-2118, x 48817 (p)
(405) 271-5446 (f)
Mendy-Schmerer at ouhsc.edu<mailto:Mendy-Schmerer at ouhsc.edu>
http://www.ouhsc.edu/financialservices/SFA/

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