Beginning this semester, students in the University’s ROTC program will no longer receive aid for room and board previously supplied by the Honor Award scholarship.
The cut applies to all students applying for scholarships beginning this semester. Students currently utilizing the aid will not be affected.
Capt. William Conger, scholarship and enrollment officer, referred to the elimination of the Honor Award as a “big dink for us.” According to Conger and students in the ROTC program, the provision of room and board was a large incentive for students to attend the University.
“The only competition we had at the University was the United States Military Academy at West Point,” Conger said. “Now I’m competing with other Southeastern Conference schools.”
He noted there will no longer be cadets attending the University on a full-ride scholarship because of the cut. The Honor Award was among 13 scholarships lost this year in budget cuts, he said.
Room and board funds were a major draw to the University for students interested in the ROTC program, including business administration sophomore Alejandro Gonzalez, who chose to come from Pensacola, Fla.
Gonzalez said the cut is “only for people who just got the scholarship this year,” and he’s one of the new recipients who won’t receive aid. He said the cut puts the University in line with every other college in the country.
“I knew that we had room and board, and when I got here we still had it,” he said. “I wasn’t aware.”
Gonzalez said the unanticipated cut affected his personal budget directly, as he doesn’t have a meal plan and at times finds himself “mooching off everyone else.”
He said he predicts the cut could negatively influence the University’s image as out-of-state students like himself weigh their college options.
But recent cuts announced by the United States Marine Corps to tuition aid programs were rescinded Wednesday.
It was announced Oct. 17 that tuition aid to active-duty Marines would be cut by approximately 75 percent, bringing the annual ceiling of aid for undergraduate studies from $3,500 to $875.
The per semester-hour rate for tuition aid from the Marine Corps was slated to drop from $250 to $175 for undergraduates. The annual ceiling for graduate students would have dropped from $4,500 to $1,125 — also a 75 percent drop.
Maj. Shawn Haney with the Marine Corps’ Public Affairs Office explained that though it looks like a major reduction, it “would allow the majority of Marines to still receive benefits.” She added that 87 percent of Marines receiving the aid only take three to five hours of classes.
But eligibility requirements for tuition aid were changed with the cut, requiring that a Marine spend one year’s time at his or her first Permanent Duty Station and that he or she be recommended for promotion or advancement, among other new criteria.
“These are obviously the Marines who will still be around the Marine Corps through their enlistment,” Haney said of those eligible for the aid.
She said the cuts were made “so that we can maximize the benefits across the Marine Corps.”
The Department of Defense retracted the tuition aid cut Wednesday, though specified that the budget for tuition aid will remain limited.
Since fiscal year 2009, the Marine Corps’ tuition assistance budget has dropped from $70 million to $28 million, according to data supplied by Haney, which also lists the percentage of Marines using tuition assistance at 15 percent.
The Marine Corps noted upon its retraction that tuition assistance funds will likely run out during the next fiscal year.
 
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Contact Clayton Crockett at [email protected]