Union Plus Free Degrees are Dead

[TINASAM]

Something to do with the Department of Education, the degrees have ceased enrollment and students are only given a brief time to finish. Eastern Gateway, Franklin University and Central State are all stopping anyone from enrolling. That's all the info I have but wanted to pass it on to anyone that was considering joining the program. It's dead now.

[freeloader]

This was discussed before (toward the end of the thread): https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...commission

If anything, it seems like EGCC is fighting back to try to resume the program. They filed a lawsuit against the federal Dept of Education on 9/2/2022 trying to get the program restarted: https://egcc.edu/press-release/

To me, the whole argument by the Dept of Education is a bit misguided. As I understand it, EGCC (and the universities offering bachelors through Union Plus Free College) are in trouble for using Pell Grant dollars to pay for the cost of education of non-Pell recipients. But, if I get a Pell grant and use at at a college, particularly if I use it at an out of state community college, the money the college receives from the Fed Gov’t might well exceed the cost of education. The college will then use the money toward operating expenses/the general fund of the college. So, EGCC is in trouble because they are using “extra” funds to help pay for the cost of education of SOME students and not applying it generally to help ALL students?  I’m not saying that this might not be a violation of law, but if it is, the law seems a big misguided to me.

[bjcheung77]

Hopefully there will be other similar programs from the states where people reside in, with financial aid and/or tuition assistance from work reimbursement, an affordable degree will be attainable.  There are program such as this as well, we should create a thread to "house" all options for people in each state or maybe create a wiki similar to that: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...e-Provider

[ss20ts]

To me, the whole argument by the Dept of Education is a bit misguided. As I understand it, EGCC (and the universities offering bachelors through Union Plus Free College) are in trouble for using Pell Grant dollars to pay for the cost of education of non-Pell recipients. But, if I get a Pell grant and use at at a college, particularly if I use it at an out of state community college, the money the college receives from the Fed Gov’t might well exceed the cost of education. The college will then use the money toward operating expenses/the general fund of the college. So, EGCC is in trouble because they are using “extra” funds to help pay for the cost of education of SOME students and not applying it generally to help ALL students?  I’m not saying that this might not be a violation of law, but if it is, the law seems a big misguided to me.

If a grant exceeds the cost of tuition and fees, the student receives those funds as a refund. The school sends a check or an electronic transfer if you have that set up. The school doesn't get to keep the excess funds. I've received refunds from grants in the past.

[dfrecore]

To me, the whole argument by the Dept of Education is a bit misguided. As I understand it, EGCC (and the universities offering bachelors through Union Plus Free College) are in trouble for using Pell Grant dollars to pay for the cost of education of non-Pell recipients. But, if I get a Pell grant and use at at a college, particularly if I use it at an out of state community college, the money the college receives from the Fed Gov’t might well exceed the cost of education. The college will then use the money toward operating expenses/the general fund of the college. So, EGCC is in trouble because they are using “extra” funds to help pay for the cost of education of SOME students and not applying it generally to help ALL students?  I’m not saying that this might not be a violation of law, but if it is, the law seems a big misguided to me.

EGCC is keeping money that they aren't entitled to.  When a student gets Pell grants that exceed the cost of tuition, the STUDENT gets the extra money for living expenses, books, etc.  Not the school.

Also, CC's are not for-profit enterprises that get to decide what to do with excess money.  They are supposed to charge students what it actually costs to attend, and not more than that.  So, a student getting Pell grants should be paying what it costs to go there, and not a penny more than that.

The problem is that the UNION should be paying something towards tuition.  I'm not understanding how this is even a thing.  If the union is letting their people go through a program, then it would stand to reason that they are paying for it; if the union isn't paying, then why is it even involved?  Did it negotiate this deal?  If so, then they are scamming the rest of the students just like EGCC is.

[freeloader]

ss20ts and dfrecore, you raise very good and important questions. Questions that are beyond my understanding of the intricacies of the Union Plus Free College program.

I participated in the program, but already had a BA when I was taking EGCC classes. I wasn’t eligible for a Pell Grant, so I can’t speak first hand to all the details.

I would love to know if other people received a Pell Grant rebate/refund while attending EGCC if their Grant exceeded their cost of attendance. If they should have and did not, I can see that this would be a problem.

We have gone over a lot of this before, I believe in the context of EGCC, on this forum. My thinking was along the lines of “out of state students subsidize in-state students”.  This is widely true among state college and universities. EGCC has pretty high out of state tuition, so I am sure out of state, paying/paying through loan students (outside Union Plus) are effectively subsidizing the in-state students among the general student population.  Within the Union Plus program, the out of state Pell Grant recipients are (this is one of the things at issue, apparently) subsidizing other participants in the program, or so it seems.  If EGCC is going one step beyond merely using out of state tuition  to subsidize in-state and non-paying/minimally-paying Union Plus students, that is one potential problem. If they are taking the remainder or excess of Pell Grant funds, that would seem to be a separate but related issue

[dfrecore]

ss20ts and dfrecore, you raise very good and important questions. Questions that are beyond my understanding of the intricacies of the Union Plus Free College program.

I would love to know if other people received a Pell Grant rebate/refund while attending EGCC if their Grant exceeded their cost of attendance. If they should have and did not, I can see that this would be a problem.

We have gone over a lot of this before, I believe in the context of EGCC, on this forum. My thinking was along the lines of “out of state students subsidize in-state students”.  This is widely true among state college and universities. EGCC has pretty high out of state tuition, so I am sure out of state, paying/paying through loan students (outside Union Plus) are effectively subsidizing the in-state students among the general student population.  Within the Union Plus program, the out of state Pell Grant recipients are (this is one of the things at issue, apparently) subsidizing other participants in the program, or so it seems.  If EGCC is going one step beyond merely using out of state tuition  to subsidize in-state and non-paying/minimally-paying Union Plus students, that is one potential problem. If they are taking the remainder or excess of Pell Grant funds, that would seem to be a separate but related issue

Out-of-state students pay the full price; in-state students pay a lower cost because the state (via taxpayers) picks up the rest.  So in CA for instance, CC is $46/cr; that's a very low cost, and it's not subsidized by out-of-state students, it's subsidized by taxes people pay going to CC's.

The problem here is that EGCC was charging everyone a lot, and then giving the union students a discount.  When you give someone a discount off the true price, then who is paying the difference?  It certainly wasn't the union.  Which means that they're charging everyone else more to subsidize the union students.  That's completely unethical (and probably illegal).

Now, if the union wants to help pay for these students to get a degree, then they should be PAYING something for this.  If they're not paying anything, then I don't get how this whole scheme is supposed to work.  Who on earth at EGCC thought this was a good idea?

[davewill]

...
The problem here is that EGCC was charging everyone a lot, and then giving the union students a discount.  When you give someone a discount off the true price, then who is paying the difference?  It certainly wasn't the union.  Which means that they're charging everyone else more to subsidize the union students.  That's completely unethical (and probably illegal).

Now, if the union wants to help pay for these students to get a degree, then they should be PAYING something for this.  If they're not paying anything, then I don't get how this whole scheme is supposed to work.  Who on earth at EGCC thought this was a good idea?

I wonder how and if this is any different than the employers like Taco Bell and Starbucks that have negotiated deals with public universities. I have always assumed that those companies were not necessarily picking up the full amount of the tuition, but maybe they are.

[bjcheung77]

It's strange how it went south, how can they get this so awry!? I mean, if they follow the proper procedures and regulations, it should typically have worked. Financial aid should always go to the school program, and if any remaining funds will go to the student. I haven't read how this panned out or exactly what the mistakes were, but if EGCC had already known they were making these major mistakes, they should have cleared it up and done so properly, quickly, they wouldn't have wasted such a good program for union members!

[redheadguy03]

It's strange how it went south, how can they get this so awry!?  I mean, if they follow the proper procedures and regulations, it should typically have worked.  Financial aid should always go to the school program, and if any remaining funds will go to the student.  I haven't read how this panned out or exactly what the mistakes were, but if EGCC had already known they were making these major mistakes, they should have cleared it up and done so properly, quickly, they wouldn't have wasted such a good program for union members!

As a union member and officer I can tell you the articles are a bit off. This program has been going for 7 years and then all of a sudden it's having issues? Very odd. EGCC just filed a lawsuit due to the DOE not responding to any of the proposed resolutions brought by EGCC. It should be noted EGCC isn't the only union school. Central State University and Paul Quinn were both a part of this program as well. EGCC is still working on getting it all fixed and hopefully they do.