Newspapers / The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / April 25, 2003, edition 1 / Page 2
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UMUMUM .tyJxlLfrrr*l dl€M-*L ,CXT*H- Enrollment Increase Effects on Financial Aid ames E. Tatum Editor-in-Chief This is the second in a se ries of articles about the in crease in enrollment at Guilford College and its implications for the Guilford community. This ar ticle looks at financial aid. Guilford College expects to enroll around 2,000 students this fall, including traditional, CCE, and Early College students. While a larger enrollment does mean more tuition dollars for the institution, it also means more students seeking assis tance with the price tag. Many students at Guilford are on some form of financial aid - the col lege awards over $8 million in aid to students each year, not in cluding loans-and scholarships from the federal government. Anthony Gurley, Associate Dean for Enrollment, sees two implications that the increased enrollment could have on the fi nancial aid program at Guilford. "First, it depends on where that enrollment is coming from, traditional students or CCE," Gurley said. "There are for all practical purposes no institutional grant scholarship dollars awarded [to CCE students]." Gurley adds that CCE students do receive some institutional aid, but calls it "sta tistically insignificant." He also in dicated that the majority of the recent growth in the college's en rollment has come from the CCE program. "On the other hand, any growth that comes from the tradi tional campus - and I hope we will JVcuuA. see some of that over the next year or two - will impact the financial aid programs, assuming you en roll students from the same eco nomic strata that you are currently enrolling students," Gurley said. "And if you are, then obvi ously there is an average insti tutional [cost] per student, and as the population increases, if that average stays about the same, the aggregate dollar amount has to go up." "Of course, the other side of that is producing more net rev enue," Gurley said. Gurley said that the college was also gradually reducing its discount rate - the percentage of tuition expenses that Guilford funds itself through institutional dollars. Although the discount rate does not vary much from one year to the next, Gurley says the college has "a pretty good track record over last few years of driv ing down that discount rate just ever so slightly." "The goal is to keep the dis count rate as low as possible while enrolling as many qualified students who fit the mission of the college as possible," he added. Gurley cites the increase in CCE enrollment as one factor that has allowed the college to reduce its discount rate. CCE students bring money to the college from the state of North Carolina un der the NC legislative grant, dol lars that do not count against the college's discount rate because they come from the state. The NC Initiative As the population of NC residents at Guilford increases, the college receives additional funds from the state. Every full-time under graduate North Carolinian car rying at least 12 credit hours receives a grant from the state of approximately $1,700 dol lars, down from the last few years due to state budget cuts. In addition to that, for ev ery full-time equivalent student that all North Carolinians add up to, including full time and part time (two half-time stu dents equal one full-time), the college receives about an ad ditional $l,lOO from the state. .Gurley estimates these addi tional funds total about a couple hundred thousand dol lars each year, increasing the financial aid coffers. "All of the money that Guilford College receives from the NC legislature - legislative tuition grants and so forth - is entirely used for financial aid purposes," said Phil Manz, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer. Manz added that some of the money went toward the in dividual students for whom the state made the contribution, while some of the funds are allocated to other needy stu dents at the college. Gurley said he felt that other administrators at the college understood that in creasing the total number of students enrolled would require earmarking more resources for financial aid. "You can't enroll more stu dents of a similar economic stripe without allowing more fi nancial aid dollars to be spent," Gurley said. wm _ : W& j m HB m i w tB- ,fc I j. ? ?'" 111;;;" ll|§ SffiBBHL ;^FJl^^eßßil|r *r g ~ Ml -* 4 wBBKkL J9 Associate Dean of Enrollment Anthony Gurley has put in a request for an additional clerical position in Fin Aid. Sarah Austin "Understanding net rev enue is key," Gurley added. If the college takes in more money per studdht than it must pay out in financial aid, then the college still comes out ahead financially, even if the student does not pay full price. Gurley said that because the funds from the state in part went to cover the financial aid costs of needy students from out of state, the end result was that college funds that otherwise would need to be spent on finan cial aid were freed up for use on other projects, such as mainte nance. April 25, 2003 Page 2 Growing Pains in Financial Aid? But while the financial pic ture presented from bringing in more students to the college may appear rosy, the increas ing enrollment has had its im pact on the financial aid staff. Gurley notes that over the last 18-24 months, while the CCE enrollment has close to doubled, the financial aid staff has not in creased in size. "We have the same financial aid staff at 1800 students that we had with 1200 students," Randy Doss, Vice President for see Enrollment, page 16
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