[Oasfaa] OHLAP-Plus Scholarships

[Fair, Bryce]

> As many of your are aware, the OHLAP-Plus scholarships (Oklahoma Higher
> Learning Access Program) are funded 100% by federal grant monies the State
> Regents receive through the GEAR UP program (Gaining Early Awareness for
> Undergraduate Programs).  The GEAR UP grant funds allow us to double an
> OHLAP student's regular award if they are also a Pell Grant recipient and
> if the award fits within the student's cost of attendance (thus the name
> OHLAP-Plus).  These funds have been a tremendous benefit.  For the current
> 2000-01 academic year, the GEAR UP funds have allowed us to award over
> $1.4 million in OHLAP-Plus scholarships to 1,150 OHLAP/Pell students.
> 
> As with any federal funding, strings are attached.  One of the strings
> attached to GEAR UP-funded scholarships is that they be awarded to
> students as a grant/scholarship source of last resort.  The federal
> regulations on GEAR UP require the State grantee (State Regents) to ensure
> that OHLAP-Plus is applied in the following order:  
> *	(1) Pell grant
> *	(2) Any of public or private grants or scholarships (such as OTAG,
> regular OHLAP, tuition waivers, academic scholarships, private
> scholarships, etc.)
> *	(3) GEAR UP Scholarship (OHLAP-Plus)
> *	(4) loans and work study
> 
> This particular issue has become controversial at the national level.
> Attached below are two recent articles from the Chronicle for Higher
> Education describing the controversy.  We don't think this is really an
> issue in Oklahoma because our instructions on applying OHLAP-Plus have
> always said it is to be applied "after Pell, OTAG, OHLAP, etc."
> 
> Nevertheless, all this is to say that beginning with the Summer 2001
> OHLAP/OHLAP-Plus payments, we will be asking those persons responsible for
> submitting the OHLAP/OHLAP-Plus claim to sign a statement certifying that
> OHLAP-Plus awards have been applied consistent with the federal
> regulations.  We believe this will help ensure compliance with the federal
> regulations.  Carol Alexander will be sending out the OHLAP-Plus Summer
> Eligibility List very shortly accompanied with the new claim form.  If you
> have any questions about the claim, please call her at (405) 524-9160 or
> e-mail her at calexander at osrhe.edu
> 
> You can find the GEAR UP federal regulations at:
> http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2000-2/042700a.pdf
> The relevant section is on p. 24762  (section 694.10).  In part it states:
> 
> 	"(e) Order of Scholarships. (1) In general. Notwithstanding 34 CFR
> 	673.5, in awarding GEAR UP scholarships, a State or Partnership must
> 	ensure that, for each recipient of a scholarship under this part who
> is
> 	eligible for and receiving other postsecondary student financial
> 	assistance, a Federal Pell Grant, if applicable, be awarded first,
> any
> 	other public or private grants, scholarships, or tuition discounts
> be
> 	awarded second, a GEAR UP scholarship be awarded third, and then any
> 	other financial assistance, such as loans or work-study, be
> awarded."
> 
> 
> One final issue on the OHLAP-Plus Scholarship-- In the first two years of
> OHLAP-Plus, we have been able to award the scholarship to every
> Pell-eligible OHLAP student.  We will also be able to do this in the third
> year of 2001-02.  However, due to the growth in students in the OHLAP
> program, by the fourth year (2002-03) we will likely not be able to fund
> all Pell-eligible OHLAP students.  Beginning that year, we will probably
> have to apply additional criteria required by the grant.  That criteria
> includes participation of the student in TRIO and/or GEAR UP programs in
> high school.
> 
> I apologize for the length of this e-mail, but this is a very important
> issue.  As one of the articles below indicates, Oklahoma's GEAR UP program
> has established itself as one of the leading programs in the nation-- in
> large part because it could be coordinated with our existing OHLAP
> program.  The federal government and many other states will be watching
> our progress closely.  We appreciate your help in making this program a
> success for our students.
> 
> If you have any questions please contact the OHLAP office at (405)
> 524-9160.
> 
> 
> Bryce Fair
> Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
> State Capitol Complex
> 500 Education Building
> Oklahoma City, OK  73105-4500
> Phone: (405) 524-9162
> Fax:  (405) 524-9230
> e-mail:  bfair at osrhe.edu
> 
> 
> ==========================================================================
> ====
> 
> Chronicle for Higher Education
> From the issue dated May 18, 2001
> 
> 
> Bush Administration Evaluates GEAR UP and Seeks a Budget Cut
> By JENNIFER YACHNIN
> 
> GEAR UP is stuck in neutral. 
> 
> Supporters of the two-year-old program argue that it is the best of
> several government-led efforts to encourage young students from low-income
> families to prepare for college. But whether the Bush administration will
> warm to GEAR UP -- which was started and championed by President Bill
> Clinton -- is unclear. President Bush has requested just $227-million for
> the program in the 2002 fiscal year, a 23-percent decrease, and Education
> Department officials are evaluating its effectiveness. 
> 
> It doesn't help that college officials are ambivalent about GEAR UP.
> Financial-aid officials are opposed to rules that allow them to use GEAR
> UP money for scholarships only as a last resort. Those rules have prompted
> some prominent higher-education associations to throw their weight behind
> other federal college-preparation programs, such as TRIO. 
> 
> GEAR UP's advocates say college officials should stop quibbling over the
> regulations and instead consider how the proposed budget cut would affect
> students. The Bush budget plan would provide enough money to allow current
> programs to continue, but it would eliminate new grants. 
> 
> "If there were to be this type of cut, even for a year, it would weaken
> existing programs and mean tens of thousands of young people who think
> they're going to be part of a college mentoring program would be
> essentially dropped," says Gene B. Sperling, a visiting scholar at the
> Brookings Institution, who was an economic adviser to President Clinton. 
> 
> GEAR UP, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for
> Undergraduate Programs, pairs schools in low-income areas with colleges
> and local businesses so that entire grades of students -- typically from
> the seventh grade through graduation -- can benefit from mentoring and
> academic programs. 
> 
> The program has awarded 237 grants to local partnerships in 42 states, and
> in Guam, Micronesia, and Puerto Rico. Twenty-eight states have received
> additional money through GEAR UP, for programs that award college
> scholarships and work to align elementary and secondary curriculums with
> the entrance requirements of state colleges and universities. 
> 
> In 2000, the average local grant was roughly $460,000 and the average
> state grant was $1.7-million. Both the states and the local partnerships
> are required to match the federal contribution dollar for dollar. 
> 
> Program participants say GEAR UP is unique among federal outreach programs
> because it seeks to influence students in middle school, well before they
> have settled on a college or vocational career track. The Clinton
> administration intended for a new crop of middle-school students to be
> added each year, but those plans will be shelved if the program's budget
> is cut. 
> 
> The local partnerships have tremendous latitude to develop their own
> programming. The partnership involving public schools in Philadelphia, for
> example, coordinates field trips to local colleges, so that middle-school
> students can meet with undergraduates, professors, and admissions and
> financial-aid administrators. 
> 
> "Students can see that college is not something that's far out of their
> reach," says Thomas Butler, who oversees the Philadelphia program. 
> 
> The partnerships are strongly encouraged to arrange sessions with parents,
> which can be classes that last just an hour or courses that run for
> several weeks. A public-school partnership in Arlington, Va., sponsors
> workshops for parents on academic planning, and on less-obvious aspects of
> student life that could affect preparation for college, such as teen
> depression or familiarity with the Internet. 
> 
> The Education Department's review of GEAR UP will focus on 20 partnerships
> and seven state programs. Department officials decline to identify which
> grant recipients will be evaluated, but they say they plan to release four
> reports on the program over the next six years. The first, which will
> examine how well the programs are being carried out in schools, is slated
> for release this summer. 
> 
> Some of GEAR UP's strongest supporters, including the California State
> University System and the United States Student Association, are still
> pushing Congress to increase the program's budget by 44 percent, to
> $425-million. 
> 
> "This program meets so many of the demands that members of Congress are
> making -- it is a public-private partnership, it is targeting the most
> at-risk group of students, it's flexible spending," says Corye Barbour,
> the legislative director of the United States Student Association. "It
> really fills a gap that none of our other programs meet." 
> 
> Others merely hope that the program's budget will be sustained. GEAR UP
> does have some bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Republican backers
> include Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, who serves on the House subcommittee
> that oversees the student-aid programs, and Sen. James M. Jeffords of
> Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
> Committee. 
> 
> "The fact that there are now more than one million kids in GEAR UP in
> places like Oklahoma, Colorado, Alaska, and the like, means [the program]
> now reaches members of both parties, because they have constituents who
> are benefiting from the program," says Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania
> Democrat who helped conceive GEAR UP. 
> 
> The outlook for GEAR UP would be brighter if it had widespread support
> among colleges. But many college officials object to program rules that
> require them to use GEAR UP scholarships only as a last resort when
> assembling aid packages. Congress and Education Department officials put
> those rules in place to ensure that scholarship recipients would not see
> their campus aid reduced as a result. (The scholarships will be only a
> modest portion of most GEAR UP budgets until 2005, when students in the
> program begin to graduate from high school in large numbers, but some
> states already offer the awards.) 
> 
> The Student Aid Alliance, a coalition of college groups that lobbies for
> federal financial aid, is seeking no new money for GEAR UP. One member,
> the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, is
> especially ambivalent about the program. 
> 
> "It's a real tragedy that rule is in there, because absent that, this
> program could really help some needy kids," says Sarah A. Flanagan, vice
> president for government relations at the independent-colleges
> association. Instead, the association has lobbied for more money for TRIO,
> a program that also helps low-income students prepare for and pay for
> college. 
> 
> That stance has angered some advocates for GEAR UP, including Hector
> Garza, president of the National Council for Community and Education
> Partnerships, a nonprofit organization in Washington. 
> 
> Mr. Garza points to Oklahoma's GEAR UP program as an example of how the
> "last-dollar rule" quandary can be easily fixed. The state revised the
> rules on its state grants, so that they are awarded near the end of the
> process, just before the GEAR UP funds are tapped. 
> 
> "Higher-education associations were involved with the negotiated
> rule-making when these regulations were put into place," Mr. Garza says.
> "They had ample opportunities to express their concerns. They didn't do
> that at that time. The program is under way, the program is working. It's
> time for them to get on board." 
> 
> The broad support for TRIO also hurts GEAR UP. Mr. Bush is seeking
> $780-million dollars for TRIO, a 6.8-percent increase. That program's
> supporters say GEAR UP duplicates services that TRIO already provides, and
> they fear that the younger program's troubles could sink TRIO, too. "How
> do you solve the GEAR UP problem?" asks Maureen Hoyler, executive vice
> president of the Council on Opportunity, which lobbies on behalf of TRIO.
> "Do you take money from the proposed TRIO increase?" She says that's a
> worst-case scenario, and that she is optimistic that Congress won't cut
> TRIO's budget. 
> 
> Meanwhile, supporters of GEAR UP must try to convince legislators that a
> cut would thwart the program's goal: reaching students before they enter
> high school. 
> 
> "If we're going to make a difference in the lives of low-income and
> first-generation students, we have to start before high school," says
> Susan Bonoff, a GEAR UP program director at Walter Reed Middle School, in
> North Hollywood, Calif. "By the time a lot of them get there the die has
> already been cast." 
> 
> http://chronicle.com
> Section: Government & Politics
> Page: A28 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
> 
> 
> 
> ==========================================================================
> =====
> Chronicle for Higher Education
> From the issue dated May 4, 2001
> 
> Rules on Use of Student-Aid Funds Upset College Officials
> 'Last dollar' requirement said to limit institutions' flexibility
> 
> By SARA HEBEL
> 
> College officials remain uneasy and angry about rules attached in the last
> two years to some federal financial-aid programs that dictate how
> institutions must allocate money to students. They argue that those
> demands could hurt needy students and put at legal risk any institutions
> that make even well-intentioned decisions to deviate from the rules. 
> 
> College lobbyists and financial-aid officials also say the rules
> fundamentally shift federal policy on student aid in an abhorrent way, and
> so make it difficult for them to embrace programs whose goals they
> support. 
> 
> The disputed rules require institutions to use money from certain federal
> programs only as a last resort when assembling aid packages. The
> requirement is attached to the GEAR UP program for disadvantaged students,
> the tuition-assistance program for residents of the District of Columbia,
> the National Early Intervention Scholarship and Partnership Program, and a
> veterans' benefit program. 
> 
> Congress and Education Department officials put the rules in place as
> those programs were enacted in recent years to try to ensure that students
> who receive grants through those programs would not see their campus aid
> reduced as a result. 
> 
> Department officials note that institutions did not complain several years
> ago when similar rules were attached to the National Early Intervention
> Scholarship and Partnership Program. Including the last-dollar requirement
> with GEAR UP and the other programs was merely following precedent, they
> say. In addition, the regulations do allow for some flexibility in
> exceptional circumstances. 
> 
> "We are really aiming to fulfill the federal role, to help provide access
> to needy students," says Maureen A. McLaughlin, deputy assistant secretary
> in the Office of Postsecondary Education. "It is important to make sure
> that this aid will in fact increase what those students would have
> gotten." 
> 
> Nevertheless, college officials contend that the regulations fundamentally
> change federal-aid policy. "My view of the federal government has always
> been that they come first, that their aid is the equivalent of a father's
> checkbook," says Sarah A. Flanagan, vice president for government
> relations and policy development at the National Association of
> Independent Colleges and Universities. "That's the premise of it, that's
> the beauty of it. But now we don't get their money until after the whole
> package is done." 
> 
> The rules on GEAR UP, the District program, and other aid also put
> colleges in an awkward position, because thousands of private scholarships
> have the same requirement, financial-aid officers say. Aid officials also
> say the regulations force colleges to distribute their own institutional
> aid in ways that might not result in the greatest benefit to the greatest
> number of students. 
> 
> Last fall, about 25 public universities initially declined to participate
> in the District of Columbia program, which allows residents of the
> nation's capital to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges across
> the country. The last-dollar rule was one of their major objections; the
> colleges had to agree to that provision if they wanted students from the
> District to be able to use the federal aid at their institutions. 
> 
> Since then, administrators of the program have adjusted other rules that
> college officials had opposed, and the universities that had objected have
> now signed on. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Ms. Flanagan reports that a "handful" of private institutions
> do not plan to accept GEAR UP scholarships when students in that program
> begin entering college in the fall of 2005. She declined to name the
> institutions. 
> 
> Those colleges feel that they have a legal obligation to private
> scholarship programs that also require that their dollars be allocated
> last, she says. Moreover, if a federal official were to find that an
> institution did not strictly abide by the complex and sometimes
> conflicting last-dollar rules, the institution would risk losing
> eligibility for all federal Title IV aid, which includes major programs
> like Pell Grants and Perkins loans. 
> 
> Fighting the last-dollar requirement is one of the top priorities of the
> independent-college group, Ms. Flanagan says. But that stance makes it
> difficult for the association to take a position on GEAR UP, whose goals
> the group otherwise supports. The program pays for college mentors and
> establishes academic programs to help prepare low-income middle-school and
> highschool students for college. It also includes some funds for college
> scholarships. 
> 
> "Early intervention is really, really important," Ms. Flanagan says. "So
> we are in a position of not advocating against it, but we sure can't push
> for it. It's a real tragedy." 
> 
> GEAR UP could use the support of college associations, as it faces a shaky
> future quite apart from the last-dollar issue. In his budget, President
> Bush proposed cutting the program -- which was created under President
> Bill Clinton's administration -- by 23 percent, to $227-million. That
> would be enough money to support only existing projects. 
> 
> Ms. Flanagan and others also worry that donors interested in establishing
> scholarships might instead use their money for other purposes if aid from
> certain federal programs is required to be used only as a last resort. The
> donors might feel that their contributions would just replace federal aid
> that otherwise would have gone to the student. 
> 
> Here's how such a predicament might arise: A given student is eligible for
> the GEAR UP program, for a private scholarship whose sponsors require that
> it be used as a last resort, for institutional grants, and for a Pell
> Grant, which is not subject to the last-dollar requirement. 
> 
> Under the last-dollar rules, an institution would have to use its own
> money, the Pell Grant, and the private scholarship before tapping into the
> GEAR UP scholarship. If the student were eligible for more aid than the
> formulas indicate that he or she needs, then a portion of the GEAR UP aid
> might not be used. 
> 
> Financial-aid officers argue that the restrictions imposed by the
> last-dollar regulations prevent colleges from equitably distributing their
> own limited pools of grant money to students who need it the most. 
> 
> Catherine H. Geier, director of student financial services for Trinity
> College, in Washington, says she would prefer to provide less
> institutional aid to students who qualify for other assistance, like the
> GEAR UP or District of Columbia scholarships, so that the institution
> could use its own money to help needy students who don't benefit from
> those programs. Trinity spends about $1-million of its funds each year on
> financial aid, but that still does not cover the full needs of its many
> students from low-income families. 
> 
> "This wouldn't allow us to use our judgment," Ms. Geier says of the
> last-dollar rule. "It is forcing us to give more money to the GEAR UP
> student just because the student is in that program." 
> 
> Ms. McLaughlin, of the Education Department, points out that if a student
> in the GEAR UP program is eligible for more aid than he or she can use,
> the funds saved by GEAR UP could be used for other needy students in the
> program. 
> 
> College officials, however, say their philosophical objections to the
> last-dollar policies are even stronger than their practical objections to
> them. "I don't think any other agency has the right to tell me what to do
> with my money," argues Karen Fooks, financial-aid director at the
> University of Florida. 
> 
> Florida didn't have any students last year who used the District tuition
> grant, but she anticipates that as many as five might enroll as freshmen
> this fall. When students in GEAR UP begin to enter college, and as more
> students take advantage of the District aid, she and other college
> officials expect last-dollar conflicts to increase. 
> 
> Eventually, "it leaves you out of compliance with something," Ms. Fooks
> says. 
> 
> Daniel Davenport, financial-aid director at the University of Idaho, says
> policy makers and aid-program administrators must do a better job of
> analyzing how the myriad aid programs work together. "We need to make sure
> that we have the flexibility we need to package all the different types of
> resources to give students the best package of aid that we can," he says. 
> 
> There is little hope that the federal regulations will be changed soon.
> College officials say it is hard to get Congress to revisit the issue;
> many lawmakers suspect that without such safeguards, institutions will
> take advantage of the federal grants and reduce their own aid to students.
> In addition, there are no current legislative proposals to which such a
> change might easily be added, college officials say. 
> 
> "Because this is predominantly a legal argument, and few schools have as
> yet been pressed to implement these packaging rules, it will be difficult
> to place this issue of principle above the immediate pressing need for
> more funds for poor students to attend college," says Nancy C. Coolidge,
> who handles government relations on student aid for the University of
> California system. "This is not the only injustice that enjoys the
> codification of the law, and it may well remain in law for some time to
> come." 
> 
> 
> 
> http://chronicle.com
> Section: Government & Politics
> Page: A26 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
>