RALEIGH, N.C. - Families across North Carolina and state government felt the same financial pressures this year as they cobbled together paths for children to get a college degree.
More parents needed outside help to send their kids to school as the state's unemployment rate hovered near 11 percent, tuition and fees rose and family college investments tumbled in value.
At East Carolina University alone, financial aid needs for in-state undergraduate students soared from $98 million last year to $135 million this year, according to the school's financial aid office.
"The economy in general has meant more families having a difficult time to find the means for their children to attend college,'' said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake, co-chairman of a legislative study commission meeting for the first time this week to recommend reforms to the state's financial aid system.
The panel begins after lawmakers this year shuffled around financial aid programs to keep the state budget balanced and University of North Carolina system campuses among the most affordable in the country.
They killed a college affordability program began just last year and championed by then-Gov. Mike Easley to try to make college debt-free for as many as 25,000 students. And while some pots of money for financial aid increased, lawmakers did it by siphoning more cash than ever from a special state fund as an alternative to dwindling tax revenues.
"The Escheats Fund just keeps going down," said Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, one of the Legislature's leading UNC system boosters. "We can't destroy that fund. It's really dangerous."
The Joint Legislative Study Committee on State Funded Student Financial Aid will make recommendations to the full General Assembly over the next year.
The federal stimulus package approved this year raised the maximum Pell Grant for low-income students by 17 percent to $5,550 next year, and the Obama administration is considering federal loan changes. The Legislature also gave an additional $23 million this year to provide need-based aid to UNC-system students, which was sought by Gov. Beverly Perdue.
