Recent changes in Pell Grant legislation will most heavily impact schools whose students depend on federal grants, said Mike Scott, TCU director of scholarships and student financial aid.

The Federal Pell Grant is need-based student financial aid provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Scott said. Federal grants, unlike federal loans, do not have to be paid back to the government.

The federal government distinguishes its grants by placing them into different categories, such as campus-based aid programs and Pell Grants, Scott said.

Although campus-based aid programs use federal government money, universities only have a limited amount of funds, he said. But the Pell Grant guarantees funds for eligible students on an individual basis.

According to the Department of Education website, the new Pell Grant Protection Act limits students to one Pell Grant application per year and adds a GED or high school diploma requirement.

This bill and other revisions come as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to control high college tuition prices. According to Whitehouse.gov, the reforms would restrict funding to universities that failed to comply with new tuition standards.

Scott said federal funds made up a relatively small portion of TCU student grant money. Even if new legislation caused federal money to stop flowing, TCU’s endowments and financial aid budgets could compensate for a portion of the difference, he said.

In 2011, the Texas state legislature made a 15 percent reduction in grants for higher education. The university compensated for this loss with $1.6 million in grants, Scott said. In other words, TCU pooled resources from its general revenue, endowment and donors in order to finance grants that would have otherwise been the state’s responsibility.

This academic year, 16 percent of undergraduates received a Federal Grant, but only 4 percent received the type of grant that was subject to the new proposal, Scott said.

With the proposed legislation, a student would receive, at most, about $9,000 of federal funds annually.

Universities have been particularly concerned with providing grants to minorities and first generation college students, Scott said. Universities that did not have resources comparable to TCU might have difficulty offering sufficient scholarships and grants, he said.

TCU funded $79 million in aid to undergraduates this year and raised $100 million for additional scholarships, he said.

“So even though this is an expensive school, you still have more resources available to you at a school like TCU then you would at other schools,” Scott said.