Aid officers have endured an emotional summer, Amoroso said, because so many families are confronting an inability to pay school bills for the first time. "I've seen a few cases where both parents lost their high-paying jobs," he said. "I've never seen anything quite like that before."
He added that the university still has more aid money to hand out if special cases continue to arise.
Towson University increased its need-based grants by $1.6 million, said Vince Pecora, director of financial aid. Despite the additional help, he has shared painful conversations with some families that will not be able to send children back to Towson (where the annual cost for in-state students is $21,978) this fall.
"Obviously, it's a bad situation," he said.
Families are used to borrowing off annuities or against home equity, but such loans are harder to obtain now, Pecora said, and parents are often shocked at their sudden inability to cover college costs.
Pecora said Towson has seen a 40 percent rise in students eligible for Pell Grants and said that despite a $1.5 million increase in Pell funding, the average grant per student has decreased slightly because so many more need help.
Alex Diaz got word about her financial aid request from Montgomery College not a moment too soon. Weeks after rejecting her financial aid request in July, the two-year college assured her that her appeal of that decision would be granted, meaning Diaz was able to return to school when classes started last Monday.
"I was like beaming from inside," said Diaz, 23, who got the good news from a financial aid counselor at the Rockville campus a few weeks ago. "It was like a huge sigh and smile. I called everybody."
She called her mother in Rockville, who in May lost her job as a district manager with Avon Inc. She called her father in Gaithersburg, who works on commission as an auto body mechanic and has been facing tough times of late.
Diaz, a biology major, has 26 credits and hopes to get about 60 credits at Montgomery in order to transfer to a pre-med program at College Park. She had stopped taking classes in 2006 and went back to work full time because of personal financial difficulties. When she was ready to return to school this year, she needed to apply for aid for the first time.
