Financial aid for low-income Washington students at private four-year colleges will be cut under the state budget plan now on Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk awaiting his signature. 

Students attending any of the state’s nine independent colleges, such as Gonzaga University, Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle University, and Whitman College, would see state tuition assistance under the Washington College Grant and College Bound Scholarship programs cut to 50% of the average level awarded to students at public universities.

Aid for students in online programs, such as Western Governors University-Washington and certain apprenticeship programs, would also be reduced. And students at for-profit universities and private vocational schools would no longer qualify for the assistance.

Income eligibility guidelines would also change for the college grant program. For the 2024-25 academic year, students from a family of four with an income up to $78,500 would be eligible for the maximum award. That income amount is equal to 65% of the state median income. The latest budget calls for dropping the threshold for a full award to 60% of median income.

These reductions would begin during the 2026-27 academic year, meaning second and first-year students, along with future students, would feel the effects. 

Lawmakers adopted the cuts to student aid as part of the package of spending reductions and tax increases they approved this year to solve a budget shortfall estimated to be around $16 billion over the next four fiscal years. 

The Washington College Grant, which lawmakers approved in 2019, is often celebrated by its supporters as one of the most generous state tuition assistance programs in the nation for low- and middle-income students.

Sen. June Robinson, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said that the financial aid program has helped a lot of people attain higher education, but that the grant is not financially sustainable as it is now. 

“Quite frankly, we just can’t afford it as a state,” Robinson said. 

The cuts would affect students like Diego Gonzalez, a second-year student attending Seattle University, who thought he could rely on financial aid from the state college grant program to help pay for his education. 

“I don’t know about my future, and it really does suck because I’ve made such a good community here at Seattle University,” he said. 

Gonzalez is a first-generation, low-income college student and relies on the aid to attend college. Since the budget has passed, he said he has stayed up late applying for scholarships, worried he will no longer be able to attend college because he can’t afford it.

Growing up in a low-income household, Gonzalez said his family could barely afford buying school supplies. He didn’t think college was obtainable because of the high costs, but receiving the state tuition assistance has allowed him to get one step closer to achieving his dream of going to law school. 

While tuition is higher at private colleges than public universities, they already provide low-income students with a substantial amount of financial aid using their own resources and wouldn’t be able to make up for the cuts to the state grant, according to Terri Standish-Kuon, president and CEO of Independent Colleges of Washington.

“Those financial aid dollars are finite,” Standish-Kuon said. “We will not be able to fill the cuts of this magnitude.”

The majority of people receiving Washington College Grant funding at the private four-year schools are students of color, women, or first-generation college students, Standish-Kuon added. 

Independent colleges award one in every five bachelor’s and graduate degrees in the state and help give students who may be tied to a specific geographic area or who seek different learning environments, an opportunity to receive higher education, Standish-Kuon noted. 

Students at these colleges also graduate at higher rates than state and national averages. “Steering students away from these schools is materially harmful,” Standish-Kuon said. 

The Independent Colleges of Washington said they are urging Ferguson to veto the section of the budget legislation containing the cuts to the Washington College Grant and the College Bound Scholarship program. 

Gonzalez said he doesn’t know what will happen with his financial aid until Ferguson signs the budget. He also said that if the program is cut, even if it is restored in the future, it will not “reduce the damage or impact on the students.” 

“It’s students who kind of rely on higher education to pull themselves out of poverty, like myself, who might not have the opportunity to do that,” Gonzalez said.

This story is republished from the Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that provides original reporting, analysis and commentary on Washington state government and politics.