Wednesday, August 24, IQSS/The Battalion/Page 5B
Financial aid offers hope
to needy A&M students
By Denise Thompson
Reporter
Remember when your parents used to tell you
money didn’t grow on trees? For those students who do
remember but still need additional money for expenses,
the financial aid department could provide some shade.
More than half of Texas A&M students receive fi
nancial assistance from the Financial aid department,
Taft Benson, director, said.
Last year, 20,969 students applied for and received
financial assistance from short-term loans, long-term
loans or grants, he said.
The first step in applying for financial aid is to com
plete a financial aid form before April 15. Parents’ and
students’ income tax forms are needed to accurately
complete the FAF.
After the FAF is sent to a processing center, A&M re
ceives a letter stating the amount of family contribution
for which the student and family are responsible.
Dawn Durr, administrator for information and coun
seling, said, “This amount is determined from income
and asset information, the number of people in the
household, and other information provided on the
FAF.”
The financial aid department determines the actual
amount of the Financial aid assistance by subtracting the
family’s contribution from A&M’s student budget. For
undergraduates the average budget is $6,700 and for
graduates the average is $7,500.
Although the budgets appear low, Durr said, they
are the result of surveys taken by students every two
years to determine how much money is needed for the
year.
“When students come to us and say our budget is un
realistic,” she said, “it is actually what the students who
were surveyed said they needed.”
Five expenses — tuition and fees, room and board,
books, transportation and personal expense — are
taken into consideration when determining student’s
budgets. If the amount of aid provided from the bud
get is not enough, the student has alternative sources of
funding.
Not qualifying for aid is a possibility, but students
should not close their minds to alternatives, Durr said.
“Probably the hardest part of my job is when I give
people options, and they don’t take them,” she said.
Benson said scholarships can provide additional
funding for students. Last year, A&M awarded more
than $13 million in scholarships.
“The Financial aid department sponsors two schol
arships — the academic excellence award and the op
portunity award,” Benson said. “However, most depart
ments sponsor scholarships, and we are used as a
central location for disbursement.”
Short-term loans provide assistance to students with
temporary Financial difFiculties associated with educa
tionally related expenses. Applications for these loans
are available in the Pavilion.
Working is another source of money that can help
fund living expenses not covered in the Financial aid
budget.
“I assumed I would be working part time, so it
turned out all right,” Robert Farid, a senior geology
major who has been on financial aid for two years, said.
“You can’t have full scholarships for everyone.”
Brock Bordner, an agriculture economics major who
is on Financial aid, said, “I’m not the best Financial plan
ner in the world, but if you cut corners and stay home
every night, you might be able to live on their budget.
But I don’t, so I work 35 hours a week in bus opera
tion.”
Durr said that people applying for Financial aid
sometimes make it hard on themselves by not reading
and paying attention to letters and deadlines they re
ceive.
“Sending in applications and reply letters early, mak
ing sure information is accurate and being timely are
important things to remember,” she said. “If you sit on
something for two months, the process stops, and we
can’t do anything about it.”
An important part of receiving a letter concerning Fi
nancial aid awards is the legal obligation students face
when accepting a loan, Durr said.
Benson said if the student defaults the obligation to
repay the loan, several measures of action can be taken.
In the past, credit bureaus have been notified of de
faulters and income tax returns could be denied a per
son who has not paid a loan. For the future, Bentsen
said, professional licenses may be withheld.
“There has been talk of withholding professional li
censes from anyone who has defaulted,” he said. “What
this means is doctors, lawyers and other people needing
a license to work would not be able to do so.”
Community adjustments
necessary in Texas town
KEENE (AP) — An order for a
cheeseburger is followed still by the
automatic query, “Meat or vegetar
ian?” in this quiet Johnson County
community where maintenance
work by volunteer FireFighters on
the Sabbath can raise ire.
But Keene, a conscientiously
groomed, broom-producing town
built around a small college and lo
cated between Cleburne and Alva
rado, is undergoing changes that
might radically alter its reverential
image.
Once populated virtually solely by
members of the conservative Sev
enth-day Adventist Church who tra
ditionally abstain from meat and ob
serve Saturday as their day of rest,
Keene has mushroomed in size from
3,000 to 5,000 a 66-percent increase
— in less than a decade.
As late as 10 years ago, Adventists
represented 90 percent of the town,
said former Mayor LeRoy Leiske, an
Adventist.
Now, with newcomers commuting
to jobs in the Fort Worth-Dallas area
and belonging to different faiths, he
estimates that members of the town’s
single Adventist church compose
slightly less than half of its full-time
residents.
In recent years, Keene’s public
(AP) EDITOR’S NOTE: How
much do you remember about
the stories that have been in the
news recently?
1. It turned out that Congress
would have to cut $1.2 billion in
social spending for 1989 when
the White House’s OfFice of Man
agement and Budget said: (a) it
had miscalculated the size of next
year’s budget deficit; (b) the pres
ident would veto the budget if it
had the spending programs; (c)
the money wasn’t there for the
programs.
2. The likelihood of treaties
limiting the size of nuclear tests,
signed in 1974 and 1976, finally
being ratified was enhanced
when U.S. and Soviet scientists:
(a) held a parley on the treaties;
(b) carried out a historic experi
ment to measure each side’s mon
itoring ability; (c) lobbied the
United Nations in support of the
treaties.
3. Some members of Congress
said they opposed the U.S.-Japan
nuclear cooperation treaty autho
rizing shipments by sea of pluto
nium from European processing
plants to Japan because it would:
(a) deprive U.S. nuclear plants of
valuable resources; (b) cause
widespread damage in the case of
an accident; (c) be easy for terror
ists to hijack such a cargo.
4. Vice President George
Bush’s surprise selection for the
Republican vice presidential
nominee was little known Sen.
Dan Quayle of: (a) California; (b)
New York; (c) Indiana.
schools for the first time had more
students than the Adventist-run el
ementary and high schools which
lost not only pupils but also staff to
the well-regarded, tax-supported
district.
The Adventists, an outgrowth of
the 1840s Milerite movement that
believed in the imminent end of the
world, believe in the second coming
of Christ but set no precise date. In
the last century, some of its follow
ers, also known as Sabbath Keepers,
were persecuted for refusing to con
form to Sunday worship.
“There may be some very, very
conservative Adventists who think
the town has gone to pot, become
too liberal — and perhaps it has,”
Leiske said.
Some residents still complain
when a neighbor mows on Saturday,
and he got an earful last spring
when Edward Detwiler, the training
captain in Keene’s volunteer fire de
partment, replaced a valve on a fire
engine during the Sabbath.
Leiske said he negotiated a set
tlement whereby Saturday work
would be conducted behind closed
doors.
But it gets over 100 degrees in the
unventilated firehouse with its doors
shut, and Detwiler said neither he
5. Well into its retreat from Af
ghanistan, the Soviet Red Army
was reported to be leaving in its
wake: (a) top military officers’
luxury accommodations; (b) a
strong Afghanistan government;
(c) millions of deployed and dan
gerous mines.
6. A White House directive re
garding Congressional investiga
tion of possible illegal activities by
Panama’s Gen. Antonio Noriega
ordered the State Department,
the Defense Department and the
CIA: (a) to cooperate fully; (b)
not to cooperate; (c) to vigorously
pursue their own parallel investi
gations.
7. Civil rights leaders claimed
victory but said they would still
press a $1 million lawsuit against
Toledo, Ohio, when the city’s po
lice chief rescinded an order to:
(a) randomly stop and question
black teen-agers in a mixed
neighborhood; (b) censure a
black officer who had shot a white
citizen; (c) test for AIDS everyone
the police arrested.
8. Sein Lwin, after his ascen
dancy to the presidency had
plunged Burma into prolonged
political chaos, announced: (a) his
resignation; (b) a state of emer
gency; (c) release of political dissi
dents.
9. Upjohn Co. received gov
ernment approval to begin selling
in six weeks: (a) the first anti
baldness drug; (b) a new drug to
combat AIDs; (c) over-the-coun
ter a previously on-prescription-
only antihistamine. ANSWERS:
La 2.b 3.c 4.c 5.c 6.b 7.a 8.a 9.a.
nor any officer would enforce the
former mayor’s “compromise,”
which he said violated the separation
of church and state. Only five of the
20 volunteers are Adventist, but all
City Council members are.
“We’re going to come up here and
work,” asserted Detwiler, 29, who is
an electrician with a Fort Worth
firm. “And we’re still going to get
complaints from residents who have
lived here 60 or 80 years. I was born
and raised an Adventist, and I don’t
think it’s a Christian thing to push
your religion on someone else. Peo
ple don’t realize Keene has changed
a whole lot.”
Leiske, for one, maintains he not
only recognizes the changes wrought
by the demographic shift but also
encourages them. Besides Keene
wasn’t that Utopiana community to
begin with, he said.
“We are close-knit people who
kind of formed a colony where all
believed, ate and lived the same
way,” he said. “But I think the city of
Keene today is just a good, normal
town, probably not a lot different
from Crowley, Burleson or Mans
field.”
Campaign
asks for day
of safe driving
By Velia Velez
Reporter
The Texas Coalition for Safety
Belts is heading a campaign to pro
mote safe driving to try to achieve
one day without a traffic death this
summer.
The “One Deathless Day” cam
paign began on May 28 and will con
tinue until September 5.
George R. Gustafson, president of
Texas Safety Association said the
summer season is a high-risk time
for drivers.
“Summer driving means that
there will be more vehicles on the
road and more miles driven, which
increases the chances of injuries and
deaths,” he said.
There are 300,000 miles of road
way and 12 million licensed drivers
in Texas.
Gustafson said the safety cam
paign is directed toward all users of
the Texas roadways.
“Our message goes out, not just to
Texas residents, but also to our sum
mer visitors,” he said. “We’re urging
all of them to buckle up, avoid driv
ing under the influence of alcohol,
and to watch out for the other
driver.
Ann Streetman, public informa
tion officer for the safety belt coali
tion, said law enforcement officers,
community groups, and private
business’ have joined in promoting
the first year campaign by posting
campaign and safety belt posters in
their business’ and offices.
The last deathless day on Texas
roadways was January 5, 1977.
Quiz tests knowledge
of recent news events
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