Ohio Governor Mike DeWine addresses the legislature and guests during his 2023 State of the State address in the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Tuesday, January 31, 2023. David Petkiewicz | cleveland.com via TNS

Students struggling with the financial side associated with higher education may receive more help through a grant proposal from Gov. Mike DeWine.

State grant expansions for education, including growing the state’s current need-based scholarship for in-state public colleges and the first need-based financial aid program for students looking to enroll in community colleges and regional campuses, are set to change the trajectory of higher education accessibility for Ohio State students most in need and those seeking out higher education, Carrie Short and Faith Phillips, experts in university financial aid, said. 

In his State of the State address Jan. 31, DeWine said he wanted the state to increase higher education assistance for Ohio families. DeWine included these changes in his two-year budget proposal, which the Ohio General Assembly will debate for the next few months. 

“[The proposal]’s pretty exciting. For the state and as far as an investment into higher education and the community at large,” Short, director of financial aid at Lakeland Community College and president of the Ohio Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said. 

In his address, DeWine said the proposed budget will expand the boundaries of the Ohio College Opportunity Grant, a state government initiative instituted in 2007 to help Ohio students most in need of financial assistance.

The OCOG grant includes an expansion on the number of students eligible for assistance and raising the amount for those already receiving need-based aid at universities. According to College Board, 43 percent of Ohio State students receive need-based financial aid. 

“First, we will significantly expand eligibility to include many more working Ohio families. And second, we will increase the scholarship amount to $6,000 per student, renewable for each of four years,” DeWine said in his address.

Phillips, director of financial services for Ohio State’s Newark campus and Central Ohio Technical College, said the new grant will run very similarly to OCOG and expand on it. 

According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education, a college student can currently receive a maximum of $2,700 from the opportunity grant for public main campuses and $4,200 for private nonprofit institutions. To be eligible for the OCOG grant, a student must have a maximum household income of $96,000 and their expected family contribution — the amount a student’s family helps with education — must be at or below $2,190. Students who attend community colleges and regional campuses in Ohio do not currently receive need-based financial aid. 

“The governor is proposing to expand that expected family contribution to $10,000. That’s huge and will impact a greater number of college-going students who are, by definition of family income, needy,” Phillips said. 

Short said students’ participation in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is crucial for students to see their eligibility for financial aid. 

“Part of the challenge that financial aid offices have right now is just getting students to complete the FAFSA,” Short said. 

According to a National College Access Network report, low-income students missed out on $3.75 billion in Pell Grants — awarded to undergraduate students who “display exceptional financial need” and have not earned a bachelor’s, graduate or professional degree — because they did not fill out the FAFSA. 

DeWine also proposed in his State of State address to award Ohio high school students in the top five percent of their class $5,000 for every year of college for attending an Ohio school. 

Short said this may be hard to accomplish given the decreasing number of schools using class rankings in Ohio, and this may lead the government to create a different approach to awarding students with merit-based scholarships. 

University spokesperson Ben Johnson said in a statement these investments will make higher education more accessible for Ohioans.

“Increasing funding for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant by $6,000 per student per year will make the dream of a college degree accessible for more Ohioans,” Johnson said.