The office handles all loans and grants awarded at the University. The figure increases annually, she added. Financial aid may be awarded as a grant or scholarship that requires no repayment, employment through campus student employment services, or a loan that must be repaid with interest. Spivey said the financial aid office determines who receives financial aid using a quality assurance program to review student-aid applications. Through this program, several thousand applications, or about 5 percent, are completely reviewed to find out which questions on the form students usually answer incorrectly.
Many students misreport financial data on their applications.
Typically, these are the only questions the aid office will look at when reviewing an application to determine whether a student will receive an award. The office does not track the ratio of grant money to loan money. Although various organizations advertise that thousands of dollars in financial aid go unclaimed each year, Spivey said those assertions are false. One such organization is Cash For College, which advertises in The Minnesota Daily. A Cash For College representative declined to comment for this article.