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Financial Aid
To obtain financial aid, students will fill out the FAFSA as they do now, but there will be a single financial aid package.

Financial aid will be based on a student’s “home school,” where a financial aid package will be set up and awarded to the student. The other schools they attend will be considered “host schools” and will play no part in the student’s financial aid.

Determining the home school may be determined by where the student intends to take the majority of their classes. Guy Sievert, Coordinator of the Portland Area Higher Education Consortium, said, “It may be where you register first. It may be where you take the most classes each fall term and then remain the same until the following fall. We’re working on it.”

A student’s percentage of enrollment at their “home school” is for purposes of the National Clearing House, where banks and other lenders get their information regarding enrollment of students seeking loans. Community and state schools also receive funding based on the percentage of credits a student is taking there. A four-credit class will most likely give that school 25 percent of a full-time student’s enrollment.

Grants & Work-Study
Students applying for grants at the school(s) they are attending will be eligible for grants based on the number of credits they’re taking at the school. For example, a student taking four credits at PSU would be eligible for scholarships at the university based on those credits. If there is a scholarship available for students taking only four credits, they would potentially be eligible.

Each school may have different qualifying requirements for scholarships.

Considered by Sievert to be an added bonus will be the ability for students to apply for work-study at any of the five schools in the consortium.

Course numbers and curriculum are still different for the five schools in the consortium.
Sievert said reconciling these differences that will be tackled before the plan is implemented in full.