https://infogram.com/tuition-increase-1hzj4o5mwmpp2pw?live

By Sydney Owens

After an almost 50% jump in federal non-need-based aid from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2016-2017 school year, this portion of Loyola’s student aid has since been decreasing while all other expenses and aid have steadily increased, according to the school’s Common Data Set. The strange spike in aid may have been the result of a bill introduced by Congress in 2015.

Like other nearby nonprofit private institutions, such as Northwestern University, tuition at Loyola, along with other types of aid and expense, has increased every year since at least the 2015-2016 school year. However, Northwestern’s Common Data Set did not show the same spike and then decline in federal non-need-based aid.

Non-need-based aid is offered to students who may have a higher Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and, therefore, may not receive as much need-based aid as other students. This type of aid may include Parent PLUS Loans, Graduate PLUS Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans, and Teacher Education Access for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grants.

At Loyola, non-need-based aid increased by 47% from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2016-2017 school year and decreased by 2.9% and then 11.7% for the following school years. At the same time, federal need-based aid increased by 6.3%, 2.9% and 3.4% respectively, while state need-based aid increased by 7%, 4.1%, and 2.8%.

According to a bill from 2015, Congress made significant changes that year to the way loans are serviced to borrowers. Rather than giving preference to the four major loan servicers, Nelnet, Great Lakes, Navient, and American Education Services, Congress decided to allocate new loans to servicers based on their companies’ quality of work and ability to keep borrowers up-to-date. This was enacted to share business with non-profit loan servicers and to benefit borrowers.

Changes to loan servicers probably does not have much impact on Loyola’s federal non-need-based funding. However, the bill was introduced as part of a deal involving a $155 million raise in the Department of Education funding. Additional funding in 2016 could have led to a higher amount of aid given to students in the forms of PLUS loans and Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans.

While this additional funding may seem like a benefit to students in 2016, it also might have caused some problems for them if they still required similar funding in the following years. After the 2016 school year, there was a steady decline in federal non-need-based aid, and students may have been relying on aid that was not given to them.

Christopher Owens, a junior at Loyola, had some trouble securing funding for his education after his freshman year.

“When I was a freshman in 2016, I was eligible for a PLUS loan that covered the rest of my tuition, but as a sophomore and junior, I’ve had to sign up for installment payments and work a lot more during the semester to pay my tuition,” he said.

Sarah Eden, a senior at Loyola, said that her parents pay for tuition, but since their EFC was higher than most others, she was ineligible for any need-based aid and relied solely on non-need-based aid.

“We definitely noticed a huge drop in the amount of aid, like my PLUS and Stafford loans, that I was able to secure after my sophomore year,” she said. “It was really frustrating because we had no idea that it was going to change so much, even though our situation hadn’t changed at all.”

Loyola University Chicago and Northwestern University have not responded for comment at this time.