Financial aid applications rise nationwide

In today's paper, "As endowment drops, U. gives record financial aid" discusses how the poor economy has led the University to increase the financial aid budget to $104.2 million and the average grant to a freshman student by 5 percent to $35,309. An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrates that this increase is indicative of a larger trend. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators has released a survey showing that there was a 10 percent or greater increase in the number of financial aid applications at 61 percent of financial aid offices.

Additionally, despite falling endowments, more than half of the financial aid administrators surveyed report that their institution increased aid for the 2009-2010 school year. This number jumps to 72 percent of those surveyed when limited to four-year colleges.