Most college students, regardless of having varied majors, interests and post-graduate goals, await the same legacy after completing their undergrad: debt. While for some “financial aid” means thousands of dollars in loans, some savvy students seek employment or merit-based scholarship within Pepperdine’s academic departments to offset the cost of attendance.
This fall, several students learned that the “cost of attendance,” according to Pepperdine’s Office of Financial Assistance, did not include housing or living costs. The office notified scholarship recipients whose awards exceeded tuition prices that they could not accept all or part of their scholarships.
For years, students and departments have struggled to comply with this policy set by Financial Assistance which dictates that, in general, institutional scholarships and grants — when combined with applicable federal or state grants — may not exceed the cost of tuition.
Financial Assistance held a meeting earlier this month, in which scholarship-awarding divisions such as Communication and Fine Arts weighed in on the process of awarding scholarships and financial aid. Director of Financial Assistance Janet Lockhart announced that the policy has changed for the upcoming school year to allow departments to award scholarships that can count toward housing, books and other costs. Lockhart reserved, however, that the office will still determine eligibility based on each student’s FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), which calculates financial need.
“It has been approved to allow departmental scholarships to cover other educational related expenses above tuition, for those that qualify, but not to exceed the cost of attendance,” Lockhart wrote in an email. “We are very excited about the change and want students to receive the maximum scholarship aid they qualify for, therefore this is a definite move in the right direction to help students achieve their educational goals at Pepperdine.”
According to Lockhart, the policy has been in question for several years, but Enrollment Management decided now was the best time to change it. Lockhart, Dean of Admission and Enrollment Management Michael Truschke and the financial aid staff participated in crafting the new policy, which Truschke ultimately officially approved.
Lockhart said now is the right time to change the policy.
But not all of her colleagues share that sentiment.
Esther O’Connor, Communication Division office manager who oversees scholarships, said that Financial Assistance has been vague about explaining financial aid policies and why students cannot apply department-awarded merit scholarships to housing costs. O’Connor has worked at Pepperdine for 25 years, 22 of which she has spent at the Communication Division. For 22 years, the rules and the reasons behind them have been unclear.
When some students received notification in September 2011 that their financial assistance was “revised,” in other words decreased, due to the addition of a merit scholarship awarded by a department, O’Connor was disappointed that students could not use the additional money to cover other costs, like books.
“My question has always been, ‘Can it go to room and board?’” O’Connor said, adding that not knowing the whole policy has been frustrating, as a member of a division staff.
Lockhart said Financial Assistance does not track data regarding how many students are affected by the current policy change.
Although the change appears to be out of the blue for Pepperdine, Lockhart said that change in federal and state policies happen all the time.
“We are highly regulated by federal and state policies which require our careful monitoring of aid,” Lockhart wrote. “The last Reauthorization (changes and updates to federal policies) contained over a thousand pages of updates, just to give you an idea.”
Lockhart explained that the policy being enforced currently exists due to a limited budget.
“We have a limited amount of resources, therefore we have to budget and live within our means,” Lockhart wrote. “We determined that the majority of our aid recipients are able to receive all the grants and scholarship awards that are offered while staying within the stated policies.”
To the contrary, the Communication Division holds that every year has posed a struggle between the division and Financial Assistance as students awarded scholarships for their merit are limited to how much of the award they are allowed to accept. Meanwhile, Financial Assistance supports the policy they had formerly upheld under the principle that funds are limited and should be distributed among students as equitably as possible.
According to Trushke, the rule of institutional grants and scholarships capping at the cost of tuition is not a “policy,” but rather a “guideline” applied on a case-to-case basis depending on an individual student’s financial “need” determined by a FAFSA application.
Typically, state and federal grants are applied to tuition first. Institutional scholarships and grants can go toward the remainder of the tuition left over after government aid. Formerly, loans and outside scholarships were the only assistance for room and board available to Pepperdine students.
A few rare exceptions to the institutional aid cap are athletes with full grant agreements that cover all expenses, some lab fees (which can range from $300 to $600 per year) and international program fees, according to Lockhart.
Lockhart’s advice for students affected by the policy mid-year is that the office will continue to enforce the current policy this semester.
“We don’t make policy changes mid-year,” Lockhart wrote.
Truschke asserted that his staff does much of their work behind the scenes where their efforts are unknown to students.
“There are scores of students who have been in dire financial circumstances, and would have had to withdraw from Pepperdine if it had not been for the extra efforts of their financial aid adviser,” Truschke wrote in an email. “The financial assistance staff is very much in touch with the realities and challenges of helping our students fund their education.”
Students who are interested in discussing their financial aid can schedule appointments or walk in to meet with the next available adviser during the office’s appointment hours between 10 a.m. and noon and 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, according to Lockhart. “If students need assistance outside of these time frames every effort is made to assist,” Lockhart wrote.
