System offers recommendations for federal funding

The federal government should expand financial aid for students in need, increase funding for improving teacher quality and bolster resources for online learning, the UW System recommended to Congress recently as lawmakers begin the process to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, which provides federal funding for postsecondary education.

“Maintaining and strengthening access to college for students from all backgrounds, especially those who can least afford it, must remain our nation’s top priority for higher education,” said UW System President Katharine C. Lyall.

UW System officials also recommend that the federal government consider using the university’s process to measure accountability as a model.

The recommendations were developed by a university task force comprised of members from nearly every UW System campus and its statewide institution, UW-Extension. UW officials met with U.S. Reps. Thomas Petri, R-Fond du Lac, and Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Financial aid recommendations include increasing funding for the Pell Grant and work-study programs; raising the limit of the federal Stafford loan; and streamlining financial aid applications.

One recommendation specific to the UW System calls for amending federal law to allow each two-year campus of the UW Colleges to receive funding through a government program known as TRIO that provides federal funds to help minority, disadvantaged and first-generation students. Many of these students start at the UW Colleges’ freshman-sophomore campuses before transferring to a four-year campus.