Government officials are bracing for a large increase in the number of students needing financial aid, but Penn and its peer institutions are anticipating a smaller jump.
Pell Grant - the country's most important student financial-aid program - may need an additional $6 billion in taxpayer dollars for the 2009-2010 school year, Bush administration officials warned Congress last week.
But Penn is not experiencing the record numbers of financial-aid applicants reported by the federal government.
With the worsening economy, more people are going back to school to get an education, said David Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association of College Admission Counseling.
"There were a lot more people who applied for federal aid this year," he said, adding that a larger percentage of these applicants are eligible for Pell Grants, which are the largest source of federal need-based aid to low-income students.
According to federal data, 8.9 million students applied for federal financial aid in the first half of 2008, which marks a 16 percent increase from the same period last year.
Though Penn is expecting some increase in the number of students on financial aid next year, "we haven't seen any increase of that magnitude," director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling said.
According to Schilling, Penn does not attract many of the nontraditional students who are now returning to school to improve their job skills in light of the faltering economy.
Schilling suggested that community colleges and proprietary schools, which have the ability to expand their student bodies, are more likely to see increases in federal financial-aid requests.
Caesar Storlazzi, Yale University's director of student financial services, said Yale has seen a small increase in the number of students seeking and receiving financial aid.
"We are expecting to see more requests in November and December of this year," Storlazzi said. "This may result in increased numbers of students on financial aid for 2009-2010. It's hard to predict right now."
To meet the increasing requests for financial aid, Congress can either appropriate more money or the Department of Education can scale back the maximum amount of aid allotted to any individual student, Hawkins said.
"Congress has already started voting on a continued resolution to fund appropriations for the bill for next year," he said. As of Wednesday, "there was a $2.5 billion allocation for the Pell Grant to start filling the void."
