Every spring, bundles of anxious college students collaborate with their parents to gather the most recent tax documents, sit down and prepare to answer a series of questions intended to determine the financial aid they should receive the following semester.
To many students the FAFSA, Federal Application for Student Aid, is the saving grace that allows them to attend the school of their choice. When the aforementioned is threatened, the livelihood of all college students receiving federal aid might be in jeopardy.
In Feb. of 2011, the US government introduced the Budget Control Act as an amendment to the original Education Sciences Reform, which would substantially increase the national Debt Ceiling.
The United States Debt Ceiling was written into law to limit the amount of national debt issued by the United States treasury. It was previously $16.394 trillion in 2011 and had been reached yet again in 2012. Despite the Debt ceiling being reached in late 2012, the treasury allowed the US government to continue spending.
The United States government then proposed two options; the first was an augmented budget plan that would substantially decrease spending and the second was to increase the Debt Ceiling by $700 Billion to cover the costs of the 2013 year. Congress could not come to a consensus by the March 1st deadline, so according to the American Tax Payer Relief Act passed in Jan. of 2013; there will be automatic budget cuts in a series of departments amounting to $85 Billion.
The Republican Party believes that the cuts will reduce the deficit, and technically it will but it will also decrease the amounts of jobs available for the American citizens.
One of the major points of President Obama’s campaign for the 2008 election was to create jobs and lower the unemployment rate. In an interview with Professor Weishaus he explained “None of the private sector companies are really hiring, and if they are then the positions are low paying, have inadequate health benefits, and if available, little pension plans.”
Because of this the United States government will be forced to spend more money to create jobs. So the efficacy of the budget cuts leaves citizens with a few unanswered questions.
One of the sectors that will be majorly affected by the cuts is Higher Education and according to Professor of Economics, History, and Political Science, Howard Weishaus, if the Act is put into action it will largely affect the populations of college students at both Pace university and college campuses across the nation. “Within the $85 billion that the Sequestration will cover, there will be budget cuts in the area of Financial Aid and it will affect the Pell Grants and Student Loans” said Weishaus. The sequestration isn’t going to change anything immediately but according to Mark Stephens, the Director of Financial aid “The cuts to the programs mentioned above will not occur until the 2013-2014 award year. Therefore, current award year (2012-2013) funding will not be impacted.”
It is reported that Pace University does have an action plan in place to help minimize the effect on the students. “In anticipation of the cuts to SEOG and FWS, we have reduced the maximum awards we will offer (in these funds) slightly, so that students who demonstrate financial need will still receive the funding but may receive just a few hundred dollars less.”
Seeing that if implemented it will affect students directly, it is astonishing that most students are not involved. When asked Freshman Nursing Student Jordan White what her opinion on the subject was she responded “I’ve never heard of it because I don’t follow the news or politics.”
It isn’t clear why more students aren’t directly involved.