Chris Kemp

Senior Emilie Rabbitt will graduate in August with a degree in economics. She plans to live in New Jersey, working for a non-profit agency dealing with water quality. However, Rabbitt will take a bit of UW-Eau Claire with her – about $22,000 in student loans.

With a job that will pay her less than $20,000 per year, paying back the loans will be difficult, she said.

Rabbitt was among about 50 people who attended a town hall meeting hosted by U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, Wednesday morning in Davies Center to discuss financial issues surrounding higher education.

Kind is a member of the House’s Education and Workforce Committee, and is holding a series of town hall meetings throughout the state. He said he plans to bring what he learns in the meetings back to Washington in a budget plan.

During his presentation, which opened the meeting, Kind told the audience his main priorities were increasing access to and affordability of higher education.

One major area of concern, Kind said, is “the eroding power of the Pell Grant.” In one of a series of graphs, Kind detailed how Pell Grants at one time financed up to 80 percent of a student’s education. On average, they now cover about 30 percent, he said.

“We’re leaving too many people behind,” Kind said.

Kathy Sahlhoff, director of financial aid services at Eau Claire, said the loss of Pell Grants and a number of other financial aid programs under the proposed federal budget cuts would be devastating at Eau Claire.

About 42 percent of Eau Claire students receive some form of financial aid, she said.

One area that will significantly impact students comes from proposed changes to the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, Sahlhoff said.

The university currently receives $754,000 in funding for the program, and that amount would drop to $297,000 under the changes, she said.

Additionally, Sahlhoff said federal work study funding would be cut at Eau Claire under the proposal. The university currently receives about $1.13 million annually, but funding would fall to $289,000, she said.

As a result of the changes to work study funding, 925 students would no longer qualify to receive federal work study assistance, Sahlhoff said.

As an overall goal, Kind said he would like to see more money given to students in Pell Grants, more financial aid programs made available to students and lower student loan costs.

Some faculty at the meeting voiced concerns to Kind regarding the available funding for the universities to pay for faculty expenses.

Associate Professor of chemistry Jim Phillips also expressed concerns about available faculty funds. Phillips, who has been at Eau Claire for eight years and is currently on a year-long sabbatical, said many members of the department’s faculty have been kept from doing innovative and new projects with their students because of insufficient funds.

“In terms of trying to innovate and do new things and make things better (money problems) really hurt,” he said after the meeting. “Because doing these new things costs us money … especially in a department where half the faculty have been here eight years or less … that’s another reason that faculty are going to pack up and go somewhere else.”