For example, a study that determined if financial aid was a factor in students' decisions to cancel their application to Asbury has already been completed. The results showed that this was not the case, as many of those who canceled actually received better offers of aid than the average student. Fiskeaux noted that what may affect students most, however, is not that the college has a new method of allocating aid but the amount of aid they receive under it. The budgeted aid at Asbury rose from an average reduction in educational expenses of 12.2 percent in 1996-97 under the old system, to 16.6 percent in the current year under the new system. Fiskeaux also noted that the budgeted financial aid affected by the new system is only one of three sources of institutional aid, the others being endowed and non-endowed funds.
Endowed funds are gifts that are saved and whose interest is used for campus funding.
Institutional aid is in turn only one source out of four main sources of student aid. The other three are federal, state, and local or organizational aid. Students may see direct benefits from the new system for financial aid, but long-term benefits are also expected due to the ease of working with and modifying the new system. This latest competition was opened by Dr. Don Simmons, professor of applied communications, and a prayer by Philip Putnam, student body president. The event, which drew an audience that filled the auditorium, was judged by Dr. Arthur Fleser, former faculty member of Asbury's communications department, Suzanne Gehring of the communications department and Amanda Fryman, the squad captain of Asbury's speech team.