The Financial Aid Office Responds
The following is a question submitted at the Community Forum on June 10th. Tracy Tambascia, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, answers.
Question: “You’re sending some students out into the world with close to $200,000 in debt. Lots of students have no help from their families. It seems an institution like Art Center should have a stellar financial aid office and services. What are your thoughts on this?”
Tracy Tambascia’s response: “It is true that many Art Center students are graduating with a significant debt load, and this is an issue that the Financial Aid office and college administrators are well aware of. The issue of efficiency is an important one; there are five staff who see students and do the financial aid packaging. Because Art Center operates 3 terms a years and admits new students each term, the staff must package and revise every student’s financial aid package nearly every term. Many other campuses that operate on a traditional, two semester calendar, with most new students arriving in the fall, do not have the same kind of demands on their financial aid offices.
The availability of aid is not entirely within the control of the Financial Aid office. The office does not determine how much scholarship is available to students each year, nor is it able to change limits to state or federal funding. The office facilitates the scholarship process with each academic department every term, and also makes sure that each student who is eligible for governmental grants gets them. The office does make data available to the Chief Financial Officer and the Development Office in the scholarship planning process. The staff know first-hand the many hardships that students and their families go through in financing an Art Center education, and no one takes this lightly. Ultimately, more scholarship dollars as well as federal and state grants would help students focus more on the reason why they’re here–to become great artists and designers–with less concern about their long-term debt load and how to pay the bills each term.”
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 3:52 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Anonymous:
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:32 pmWhy was this question given to the financial aid office to respond to and not to the people that are in charge of scholarships and grants? Please have the people in charge of scholarships and grants also provide a response to this.
Jason:
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 amI would like to mention that for some student the costs involved in producing models, printing or film shorts can add up significantly over 8 or 9 terms. I understand that many student pay this expenses with credit cards. It would be nice if the financial aid office could look into to partnerships with creditors to providing a more reasonable interest rate or simply increasing materials contribution.
Unfortunately, more credit is a poor solution but making the interest rate smaller in the slightest will be save potentially each student tens of thousands of dollars.
Would you be able to generate more financial offerings for students with a larger budget perhaps to have a staff member writing grants for student work or any other school pursuits?
Community Forum Moderator:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:35 amHi Jason —
We forwarded your comments to Tracy Tambascia, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, and her reply is below:
Jason – That’s an interesting suggestion. I’m not aware that many credit card agencies would offer more favorable rates (aside from introductory rates) to members of a certain college community, but we can certainly make inquiries.
The Financial Aid Office is required to develop a standard “budget” for Art Center students—including cost of tuition, housing, living expenses, travel, educational materials, etc.—that is used to determine student’s eligibility for aid. The materials line of the budget varies slightly by department, and students can, on occasion, request an increase in the budget to accommodate increased materials expenses. This could make other funding options, like private loans, available for funding these expenses. I agree that using credit to fund educational materials is not optimal, but in general the interest rates for loans are lower than those for credit cards, and may be paid back over a longer period of time. However, more aid in the form of scholarships and grants to support student work would be preferable.
—Tracy Tambascia
Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Jason:
July 4th, 2008 at 4:16 pmWhat is the % of student that receive a ACCD scholarship?
What is the % of students receiving any kind of financial aid?
Community Forum Moderator:
July 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pmTracy Tambascia responds:
Hi, Jason. The Financial Aid Office gave me an update about this in late April, so what I’m about to share with you does not represent the full 2007-08 federal government financial aid calendar year, which runs from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008 and would cover part of Art Center’s summer term, fall term, and spring term. Now that the 2007-08 financial aid year has closed, these figures are in the process of being updated, but our sense is that these figures should not change substantially since most aid is awarded in advance.
As of the end of April, 2008:
1333 undergraduate and 130 graduate students received financial aid (of any kind including loans, grants and scholarships)
563 undergraduate students and 107 graduate students received Art Center Scholarship (these funds come out of the College’s budget)
207 students received donor scholarships (these are funds given by foundations and individuals, usually as part of an endowment)
In response to your question, I hesitate to offer only percentages as the enrollment for each term varies significantly, and that would affect this figure. Fall and spring typically have high enrollments, while summer is significantly lower. However, we do know that in fall 2007 there were 1482 undergraduates enrolled. If we took the full number of students who received any kind of financial aid during the 2007-08 year, that would represent 90% of undergraduates. Again using the fall 2007 enrollment figures, about 43% of undergraduate students received an Art Center Scholarship.
—Tracy Tambascia
Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Jason:
July 11th, 2008 at 10:08 amThank you Tracy,
These numbers make the school look generous however I know many students who by their 5th term are exceeding a six figure debt. What was the total scholarship budget for that period. I guess the real question is why do students from ACCD leave here with so much more debt than other schools with higher tuition?
Community Forum Moderator:
July 17th, 2008 at 1:31 pmTracy Tambascia responds:
Hi, Jason. I agree that $6M+ in 2008 for scholarships looks generous, but in reality is not nearly enough to make a serious dent in students’ cost of attendance. One of the charts on the home page of the forum (ACCD Tuition Discount) shows rates of spending on scholarship from the college’s operating budget. This chart shows how much work needs to be done if we are to arrive at a higher level of scholarship assistance, which is in the range of 25-30%. To answer your question, we began looking more closely at this issue late last fall, to try and better understand what additional factors are affecting student debt, since I agree that a six figure debt at graduation is alarming. We’re not done with that process, but some things that come to mind include:
1) Relatively low discount rate – which translates to scholarship funding that is simply not enough. Though hundreds of students received Art Center Scholarship, the amounts they receive are probably not enough to allow them to enroll without borrowing.
2) Debt from previous college work or completed college degrees. Nearly all of our incoming students have had some college level courses, and some have even completed bachelors degrees. While this speaks well for the level of preparation and commitment, the reality is that some students had exhausted personal, family and grant resources on some of that prior college coursework. There are some state and federal aid programs that “run out” or cannot be applied to a second bachelors degree; therefore, students in this situation who come to Art Center must rely on private loans to pay for tuition, housing and expenses. The average age of the student body is also higher. For some, this may mean stopping out from professional work experience to learn at Art Center, and exhausting personal savings relatively early on and then having to borrow for later terms. Older students may also be less likely to be able to draw on parental or family resources, again forcing them to rely on loans.
3) Enrolling for more than 8 terms. While Art Center’s history is based on the 8 term system, in which students enrolled in consecutive terms, the reality is that many students no longer follow this intense and compressed schedule. Beyond their first or second semesters, some students are enrolling in fewer units (12 to 15 rather than 18+), taking terms off for internships or special projects, and taking Art Center Lite (ACL) terms. I hear from many students that not cramming all of their learning into 8 consecutive semesters allows them to focus more on their projects and to learn better – and this makes a lot of sense. However, it may be that the longer elapsed period from start to finish – 10+ terms, for example – is a factor in the increased debt since students would need the same amount of funds for living expenses each term regardless of whether s/he is enrolled full time or part time. The chart on the home page of the forum – ACCD Tuition vs. others – is based on an 8 term estimate. The total cost of attendance would change for any student who takes longer to complete the degree.
4) Decline in federal and state support. This is not unique to Art Center, but it does affect the concerns about student debt that are being discussed on college campuses across the country and by government leaders. The cost of both public and private higher education has grown at a rate that is unmatched by state and federal grants and subsidies. For example, Cal Grants and Pell Grants have experienced only minor growth in the last decade, while the cost of tuition on many campuses has increased 2-8% nearly every year. Even state universities have experienced cuts from their local governments, and many students attending these public institutions are not able to complete their degrees without borrowing, unlike their predecessors who were able