Reductions to financial aid could hit ASU if the state’s 2010 budget takes more money from the university system, a University financial-aid official said on Friday.

In this academic year, the University furloughed all employees and eliminated more than 700 staff and faculty-associate positions to avoid cutting financial-aid opportunities.

“President [Michael] Crow has said on numerous occasions that much of the budget-reduction strategies employed thus far … were implemented to avoid having any negative impact on financial aid,” said Craig Fennell, executive director of Student Financial Assistance, in an e-mail. “Whether this policy can be maintained is dependent on the ongoing 2010 state budget discussions.”

The Arizona Legislature is working to create the 2010 budget, but the impact on the state university system remains unknown.

The University’s position is that no person should be denied access to higher education if they are qualified to do the work, Fennell said, and it works to make sure all students get the financial aid they need.

Crow told the Arizona Board of Regents on March 12 that financial aid was one of ASU’s largest areas of spending. In the 2008-2009
academic year, ASU awarded nearly half a billion dollars in financial aid to more than 46,000 students, according to the ASU financial aid Web site.

Crow said the University has no choice but to reduce the amount of money it spends on financial aid, citing merit-based aid specifically as a target for reductions.

The recent federal stimulus package should, however, help students in need of more financial assistance, said Hayley Chitty, spokesman for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

“The stimulus package offers a couple different benefits for students,” Chitty said.

Among these benefits are $17 billion to increase the availability of Pell Grants and $200 million to boost work-study programs at universities.

This should help students, Chitty said, but many universities face the same problem as ASU: maintaining long-term financial aid commitments while receiving less money from the state.

“Institutions are struggling as they try to wrestle with this,” he said.

Arizona’s universities asked regents to increase tuition and fees to bring in more revenue, which Chitty said is common nationwide.

But he said several schools are still going out of their ways to help anyone needing financial assistance.

Nebraska’s state college system, for instance, is offering to pay first-year tuition to anyone who receives a Pell Grant. Several other small colleges and community colleges are offering to waive tuition for laid-off workers seeking degrees, Chitty said.

“We’re really seeing a lot of ingenuity,” he said.

As for what larger universities will do, he said it will take some time to see how much money they get from their states.

“A lot of states are still developing their budgets, so I don’t think that can be answered right now,” he said.

Reach the reporter at adam.sneed@asu.edu.