Students using Pell Grant money for more than just tuition

Aaron Pabon/ Staff Writer

What do you do with your Pell Grant money?

The University receives grant money from Tallahassee each year, which gets dispersed to a majority of students in forms of financial grants and aid to be used for educational use.

The second a student receives the check, the question is posed: what is the money going to be used for?

In an article published on Feb. 27 in USA Today by Phil Dunn, it stated that college and university students have been irresponsibly using financial aid funds for personal use.

Amer Faraj, a computer science freshman, said the term “personal use” was vague.

“Just because people don’t use the money for school, doesn’t mean that [students] don’t use it to help with their school life, like for gas or food,” said Faraj.

Examples in Dunn’s article mention students treating their “…financial aid as their own income…” and using vouchers for purchasing gift cards on a college campus to make a purchase elsewhere.

Fernando Machado, a junior art history major, said his girlfriend has a Pell Grant and uses all the money for school.

“She doesn’t get all of her money from the Pell Grant, she has other scholarships,” said Machado. “She needs the money from the Pell Grant to pay for school, combined with another scholarships, and has to pay for books with the remaining money.”

Other students at the University are in the same boat.

“One hundred percent of my money went towards classes,” said Juan Leyva, a senior psychology major. “I even use other grants for school related fees and bills for school. I have heard of other students using it for other personal means, but I don’t have that luxury.”

While Leyva did not use his Pell Grant money for anything outside of school, he admitted to using his student refund to pay for personal bills like his cell phone.

“It is true that there is no way that we can control what the student does with the extra funds that they get that are intended for books and supplies and living expenses,” said Francisco Valines, the director of financial aid.

Valines understands the use of funds for personal use for assisting the needs of a student.

“Almost all of our students commute, and there is really only one way to get to campus, you’ve got to drive,” said Valines. “If you are using a student loan, you can pay for gas, insurance, payments, maintenance, which is valid if you need to cover those things to get to school.”

According to Valines, there are various areas that funds can be dispersed to. Examples include tuition, supplies, books, food, living expenses and gas.

Students using money for personal reasons is not the only issue.

According to Dunn, “…The American Association of Community Colleges reports financial aid and abuse such as organized fraud rings and individuals intending to commit financial aid fraud have concentrated on community college programs due to their low tuition.”

Valines has not seen that problem here at the University.

“Although we are reasonably [low] cost, we are not extremely low cost. It’s not easy to get into FIU. The way those fraud rings work is that they gather people up, all apply in a school, take the [grant] money and run. You can’t just get in here,” said Valines.

aaron.pabon@fiusm.com