Oregon financial aid programs expand eligibility

The Higher Education Coordinating Commission, Office of Student Access and Completion announced Thursday that the state’s largest financial aid programs will expand their reach for 2018-19.

Thanks to the state’s 2017-19 investments and recent assessments of projected need, OSAC has adjusted the awards for the Oregon Opportunity Grant and the Oregon Promise for 2018-19 to maximize the support these programs provide to students across the state in affording their postsecondary goals.

Adjustments to the Oregon Opportunity Grant (OOG): The OOG is the largest state-funded, need-based grant for postsecondary students. However, the grant has offered students a single, fixed award amount for the past six academic years, limiting students’ ability to pay for college as the cost of college attendance increases. In 2018-19, the OOG award amount per student will increase across the board, and increase even more for those students with higher college costs. These increases return the per student maximum grant amounts to the levels they were at in 2008-09 before the recession. The HECC is able to make this adjustment because, as planned in reports to the Oregon Legislature in 2017, the agency spent less than fifty percent of its expenditures during the first year of the 2017-19 biennium to ensure its ability to meet obligations during the second year.

For students, this means the maximum awards in 2018-19 will be $2,600 for community college students and $3,200 for 4-year college and university students, compared to a maximum award amount of $2,250 for all students in 2017-18. This two-tier award amount recognizes that students need more financial assistance to attend a 4-year institution, due to higher costs of attendance. Grant awards are prioritized according to students’ financial need, based on the federally calculated Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which measures a family’s financial strength using data that a student submits via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Currently the maximum EFC for the Oregon Opportunity Grant in 2018-19 is $3,500.

Adjustments to the Oregon Promise: Now in its second year of awarding, Oregon Promise is a state-funded grant that helps recent high school graduates and GED® recipients pay for community college tuition. In 2017-18, due to budgetary constraints, the HECC limited Oregon Promise Grant eligibility to students based on their Expected Family Contribution (EFC). For the upcoming academic year 2018-19, the HECC is able to remove this temporary EFC limit and fund all eligible recipients as was originally designed in the 2015 legislation that established the program. The HECC is able to make this adjustment based on expenditures during the first year of the 2017-19 biennium, and the most recent projections of expenditures for 2018-19.

The adjustment means that Oregon Promise applicants who will start community college in 2018-19 will not be subject to an EFC limit; all eligible applicants will be awarded the grant. Additionally, students who applied for the Oregon Promise in 2017-18 but were not awarded due only to the previous EFC limit will be considered for the grant in 2018-19. These students must have attended an Oregon community college in fall, winter, and spring of 2017-18, and meet other specific criteria in order to begin receiving the grant in fall 2018-19. In subsequent years, the HECC will continue to have the authority established by the Oregon Legislature in 2017 (Senate Bill 1032) to apply an Expected Family Contribution limit as necessary when state funding levels are insufficient for this program, so students and families are encouraged to check the program website the year they apply.

Juan Báez-Arevalo, director of the HECC Office of Student Access and Completion, says, “We are pleased that as a result of our careful stewardship of the state’s investment in these two grant programs, we are able to further expand the reach of these important financial aid resources to serve more students throughout Oregon in 2018-19.”

More information about 2018-19 awarding for each grant program is available online: Oregon Opportunity Grant and Oregon Promise. OSAC encourages all new and continuing college students to apply for the Oregon Opportunity Grant by completing the 2018-19 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or Oregon Student Aid Application (ORSAA) as soon as possible. Students who graduate from high school or complete the GED® from March 1 – June 30 must apply for Oregon Promise by June 1. Schools, colleges, and partner organizations are encouraged to share this information with students and families.