Previous Story
Framingham graduates may get reduced grant amounts
|
Posted on Jul 26 2011
Sixteen students who graduated from Framingham State University Cohort 8 may soon get their financial awards from Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance—if the board approves on Friday the new recommendation of its administrator.
After reviewing all financial records of the program, SHEFA administrator Henry Hofschneider said yesterday that he came up with a proposal to give the students the grants they were supposed to get in the fall semester 2010 but at a lower amount.
For grant-in-aid recipients, who were supposed to get $1,200 for the fall 2010 semester, Hofschneider recommends giving them $800.
For field of study recipients, the new proposed rate is $1,000 from the previous $1,500, while incentive scholars, who were approved for $2,000, are recommended $1,000.
The new rates were based on the levels the board approved for the spring 2011 semester.
“It’s still up to the board to decide. But once and for all, we want to settle this issue with the Framingham scholars,” Hofschneider said.
Framingham graduates were earlier denied their awards due to a funding shortfall for the scholarship programs, even if their applications were approved by the previous SHEFA board.
The affected scholars claimed that they are fully entitled to the award because they all met SHEFA’s requirements. The previous board, they said, had promised to reimburse their expenses once the funds become available.
Hofschneider said that SHEFA needs $75,200 to pay these students. He will propose to the board using cancelled checks that were earlier issued by the program.
He also disclosed that SHEFA has no lapsed funds from fall 2010 that could be used to reimburse the complaining scholars. He explained that graduate students are a second priority and SHEFA rules and regulations provide that awards are subject to the availability of funds.
The SHEFA board enforced an across the board cut in all its scholarship grants last spring 2011 semester due to declining poker revenues. For the new semester, the board is eyeing another drastic cut in financial awards and the termination of some grants.
