Bush's proposed budget might cut Perkins loans

If approved by Congress, a new Bush administration proposal could eliminate a type of loan held by more than 3,000 IU students and more than 600,000 students nationwide.\nThe plan could be "catastrophic" for IU's neediest students, said Bill Ehrich, associate director of the Office of Student Financial Assistance.\nThe president's budget plan for fiscal year 2007, released Monday, would abolish the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act, commonly known as the Perkins loan program. The program provides need-based financial aid to help students attain higher education.\nJust more than 3,000 IU students receive funding from Perkins loans, Ehrich said. Per-student loan totals range from approximately $1,500 to $3,000 per academic year, he said.\n"The law says that when you give out Perkins loan money, you start with the people who are the poorest and continue backward," Ehrich said. "It's not much money, but it does go to our neediest students. They would be left hanging without it."\nThe proposal marks the second year in a row that Bush has recommended the Perkins program be eliminated. Last year Congress voted the proposal down.\n"I'll be very surprised if (President Bush's recommendation) is successful," Ehrich said. "This is an election year. Do you think anyone, Republican or Democrat, is going to want to stand up and tell his electorate ... 'We got rid of a program for poor kids'? I don't think so."\nEmma Cullen, president of the IU College Democrats, expressed concern for the implications of cutting the Perkins loan program.\n"I think that being fiscally responsible is important, but I also think compromising the ability for thousands of students to go to college is shortsighted," she said. \nOn the other hand, proponents of the proposal said it would increase the flexibility of high school-level educators to fund vocational programs.\nNearly $1.3 billion in federal funds this year went to the Perkins loan program. The budget proposal for next year, if passed, would redirect nearly $1.5 billion to a new initiative that would extend the reach of the No Child Left Behind Act in high schools. \nIU College Republicans Political Director David White voiced support for the proposal.\n"Bush's proposal modernizes the (Perkins loan program), using the same funds to create a secondary and technical education program," he said in an e-mail. "The new requirements will be that recipient schools offer four years of English, three years of math and three years of social sciences. Indiana University will not be affected in any way whatsoever."\nHowever, student debt has become ever more burdensome in recent decades, which raises concerns for many.\n"The situation has gotten worse and worse over the past 25 years," Ehrich said.\nRising costs of higher education result in large part from increased expectations of technology and services, he said.\nBrendon Liner, campaign leader for the Indiana Public Interest Research Group's task force on higher education and student debt, agreed.\n"Any cut to student financial aid hurts the higher-education system as a whole," he said. "Currently, the average student debt of a graduating senior is between $17,000 and $19,000. Twenty years ago, 80 percent of federal financial aid came in the form of grants and 20 percent in the form of loans. Now, the situation is reversed."\nAccording to the proposal, the new budget would also slash a total of $12.7 billion in federal student aid over the next five years.\nHowever, Ehrich expressed doubt that the plan will actually take effect.\n"President Bush is not the first to have made this recommendation," he said. "Reagan tried to get rid of it, and he was 10 times more popular than Bush. This program has its friends in Congress, and whenever someone tries to get rid of it, powerful people lobby to keep it"