• Znine
• Campus Calendar
• My Mav
• UTA Radio
• UTA Home
• Student Email
• Libraries
• Wikipedia

• Local Forecast
• Movie Listings
• Traffic Info
• TV Listings

July 24, 2007

Financial Aid

B-On-Time loans no longer offered

Insufficient Texas budget funds keep new applicants out of the program.

Story by: Emily Aberg

The Shorthorn news editor

Some Texas college students who qualified and were approved the Texas B-On-Time Student Loan for the fall semester will not receive their loans.

A re-appropriation of funds during the last biennial Texas Legislative session resulted in insufficient funds for the increasingly popular no-interest loan program, which started in 2004.

Dominic Chavez, State Governmental Relations assistant director for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, said enough money will be available to fund the loans for the projected 10,000 students renewing B-On-Time loans. However, the board didn’t expect enough to be left over for new applicants.

Two schools hit hard by the shortfall were Texas A&M University and UT-Austin, whose financial aid officials approved new applicants for that specific program before they learned there were insufficient funds.

Chavez said that because the schools have such large bodies of incoming students that they approved qualified applicants before reviewing the Texas Legislature’s 2007-2008 biennial budget, finalized when the Legislature adjourned May 28.

The finalized version, which redirected money to other student loan programs like the TEXAS Grant Program, wasn’t a result of siphoned monies or “something the governor did,” Chavez said.

“Some people may have jumped the gun,” he said.

The budget change didn’t affect UTA students except those that expressed interest in applying for the loan, which forgives students from paying it back under the condition that they maintain a B average and graduate on time.

About 450 university students — mostly incoming freshmen and transfer students — signed a wait list to apply for the loan. On June 15, the day after financial aid officers learned about the program, those on the list were sent e-mail notices from the Financial Aid Office notifying them that the program wouldn’t be available to new applicants, Financial Aid director Karen Krause said.

Krause said students have until the census date to pay for fall classes.

Office associate director Ray Boldreghini said the university updated information about the B-On-Time loans on the office’s Web site. He said the university was fortunately not in the same position as UT Austin or Texas A&M.

“Based on their numbers, if they didn’t start early, they’d be pressed to process their loans in a timely manner,” Boldreghini said. “The Austin campus was more confident of its allocations than other schools so were making tentative awards based on what they assumed they were receiving. We’re not going to make an award offer if we don’t have that information to avoid that situation.”