Barton Community College continues to offer free tuition to some students for certain vocational courses through the Kansas Promise Scholarship Program.
Barton’s Director of Financial Aid, Myrna Perkins, shared this and other information about financial aid at Wednesday’s Great Bend Kiwanis meeting.
The Kansas Legislature approved the program and first allocated $5 million in the fall of 2021 to be used primarily by Kansas’s community colleges and vocational schools. Barton’s allocation was $536,000 but the college was only able to use $52,277.
“Barton paid out not quite 10% of its allocation and that was typical across Kansas for all of the schools,” Perkins said.
Financial aid directors were not surprised. They only had a short time to roll out the program and it was too restrictive for most students to take advantage of it, she said.
Who it is for
The Kansas Promise Scholarship is state-funded mainly for vocational programs that are declared high-wage, high-demand in the state. It is a “last-dollar scholarship,” which means financial aid departments have to first consider all other financial aid a student is receiving other than student loans.
“We can only pay what’s left of a student’s direct expenses of tuition and fees, books and housing,” Perkins said. “With this scholarship, there’s a service agreement attachment. To accept the funds, a student must agree to live and work in Kansas for two years. Once they have completed their program, students can receive a lifetime limit of $20,000 in Kansas Promise, and they have 36 months to complete the program. The clock continues to tick even if a student sits out a semester (or changes majors).”
Easing restrictions
Initially, the Legislature was conservative with its allocation because they didn’t know how much money would be spent, Perkins said. “I think there was a bit of a surprise that schools weren’t able to spend more but the restrictions didn’t allow that.”
The program is evolving in its second year.
After gathering data from the first year of the program, it became apparent that it was too restrictive and the Legislature eased the restrictions for the second year, Perkins said. This year there was no specific allocation from the state but as of April 4 Barton has paid $91,433 in Kansas Promise Scholarships – all reimbursed by the state – and the 2022-2023 school year isn’t over.
Barton President Dr. Carl Heilman said there are still restrictions. By definition, the courses are for high-wage, high-demand occupational training, so not every field is available. Even so, “it is a great program,” he said.
Approved programs for Barton Community College include, but are not limited to:
• Career Technical Education (CTE) programs in advanced manufacturing and building trades such as scale technician, carpentry, plumbing, and welding technology, as well as transfer programs in Occupational Safety and Health
• Early Childhood Education and Development CTE programs and transfer programs
• Programs for physical and mental health care careers, including a transfer program in Dietary Management
• Information technology and security CTE programs
So far, the state has been paying for the scholarships and looking at expanding the program. In January, Rep. Kyle Hoffman (R-Coldwater) introduced HB 2132, a bill that would expand the Kansas Promise Scholarship Act’s fields of study and include awards for eligible students enrolled in two-year elementary and secondary education programs. The bill would also update the eligible fields of study that a college could choose to add to the other scholarship-eligible fields of study. Examples include agriculture and education. It passed the House unanimously on March 29 and was introduced in the Senate on April 3. It was referred to the Committee on Education.
Barton financial aid facts
Barton Community College disbursed more than $11.8 million in financial aid during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the Barton Financial Aid Office Annual Report.
This included federal grants, scholarships and loans. More than $2 million came from Federal HEERF (Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund) grants that were part of the COVID-19 pandemic relief package. These funds won’t be available in the future.
The average financial aid package offered to Barton students for 2021-2022 was $8,340, which was a combination of federal, state, institutional and “other” aid.
The largest financial aid award paid to a Barton student that year was $23,808.
Seventy percent of Barton federal aid applicants processed for 2021-2022 were eligible for a Federal Pell Grant; 65% of those Federal Pell-eligible were eligible for the maximum Federal Pell Grant of $6,495. Pell grants do not have to be repaid.
Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Status
Perkins also answered questions about the status of Federal student loan forgiveness.
Federal Student Loan payments have been suspended since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 11, the pandemic emergency will officially end. Payments will resume in August.
However, last summer, President Joe Biden announced his intention to forgive up to $20,000 in debt per borrower through a loan forgiveness plan. That is being challenged in court and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to make a decision by June on whether the president has the latitude to make these sweeping revisions.
“So we don’t know yet what will happen,” Perkins said.
She did stress that the loan forgiveness plan is more nuanced that it may appear at first glance.
There are criteria such as income guidelines, she said. “So it’s not every single borrowers and it may be less than $20,000, because they’re not going to forgive more than what a student owes. Broadly speaking, at the present time, if a student is in good standing on loan payments, after 25 years of time, the loan is forgiven. Another key element in the new provisions is that loan forgiveness would be reduced to 10 years of repayment.
“It’s not just, one day the Supreme Court decides this is legal, and all that debt will be wiped away,” Perkins said.
