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UNM administrators continued to discuss the distribution of financial aid among University students in a Board of Regents meeting Monday morning.
Terry Babbitt, vice president of enrollment management, offered an update on the issue in front of the regents.
“Typically, institutional aid has a few goals that we try to achieve,” he said. “We contribute to student persistence and completion, support enrollment goals and improve academic profile by attracting top students.”
According to a document from the meeting, about $78 million from University funding went to scholarships in school year 2012. About $44 million went to grants, and $133 million went to loans for students that year.
According to another document from the meeting, 31 percent of institutional grants based on need were given to white students, 64 percent were given to Hispanic, American Indian and African American students and students of two or more races. More than $2 million is allotted to the UNM Bridge to Success scholarship, according to the document.
Talks about the racial demographics of financial aid recipients on campus started after UNM abruptly changed its Bridge Scholarship requirements this semester without notifying the campus community. Changes entailed an increased grade point average requirement for the Bridge of 3.0 and the creation of the Success Grant, which requires students to have a GPA of at least 2.5 and to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Babbitt said 20 to 25 percent of “underrepresented” students receive merit scholarships that do not specifically require a specific ethnicity, such as the National Hispanic Scholars award.
Global Education Office
The Global Education Office also offered an update on its program at the meeting.
Mary Anne Saunders, special assistant to the president for global initiatives, updated the regents on some of the responsibilities concerning incoming international students.
“Just last year we assumed the responsibility for recruiting and admitting international students,” she said. “We are also responsible for taking care of the international students once they are here.”
Saunders said the state of New Mexico would benefit economically from bringing in international students.
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According to a document distributed at the Board of Regents meeting, New Mexico had 3,272 international students from 2011-2012, and ranked 39 out of 50 states in terms of international student attendance. International students brought $72.3 million to New Mexico, according to the document.
Saunders also talked about some of the benefits of sending students to study internationally. She said the benefits include higher retention rates and grade point averages for students who go abroad.
“The graduation rate for students who have returned from study abroad experiences are higher than those who don’t have the experience,” she said.
Despite not having a lot of time to work on their new responsibility, Saunders said UNM has already seen increases in international students.
“We had less than a year, but even in less than a year we’ve seen a growth of 21 percent in our international students,” she said. “This includes undergraduate and graduate students.”
According to the document, next year’s goals for GEO include increasing “international enrollments and study abroad participation,” get funding for more international study scholarship funding and improving marketing and websites.
Center for Teaching Excellence
Director Aeron Haynie also went before the Board of Regents to discuss the center’s new initiatives for improving student success.
The first initiative is a UNM Teaching Fellows (Pilot) Program, Haynie said. She said it will focus on UNM faculty from each college.
Haynie said the faculty would meet to develop their teaching methods and to evaluate student learning.
The second initiative involves improving and expanding the training of graduate teaching assistants, Haynie said. She said the program would include introducing TAs to “best practices in higher education teaching” before they educate students in the classroom.
