Eastern administrators are working on a financial aid plan that could compensate for interim President Lou Hencken’s proposed tuition increase.

During his State of the University Address on April 9, Hencken announced he will ask Eastern’s Board of Trustees for a 3.5 percent tuition increase that would generate “approximately $1.3 million.”

The increase would cost full-time undergraduate students an extra $52 for tuition and fees for one semester. A semester’s cost would jump from $2,263.25 to $2,315.30.

Worrying that many students would be unable to attend Eastern because of the increase, Hencken said April 17 he supports a financial aid program that would use some of the extra income to provide additional assistance to students who are currently receiving financial aid.

“Many students are already working two jobs just to pay for college,” he said, “and those students may have a hard time compensating for the increase.”

The plan is being modeled after the Tuition Grant Program the University of Illinois instituted a couple of years ago after it passed a significant tuition increase, Jone Zieren, Eastern’s director of financial aid, said Monday.

At U of I, 25 cents out of every dollar made from raising tuition is set aside for student use through financial aid, Lex Tate, U of I’s public relations coordinator, said.

Eastern’s proposed plan “would designate a specific dollar amount from the tuition increase and give it to the financial aid office,” Zieren said.

The financial aid office would then evaluate which students are eligible for the aid and “apply aid to the neediest students first.,” she said.

According to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, Eastern’s current financial aid program, a needy student is one who receives $4,968, which is the largest amount of aid given per year.

For example, students who may receive $1,200 a year, $600 a semester, are not receiving the maximum amount of support from the ISAC because the commission feels they don’t need it.

Those students not receiving full aid would not qualify for the aid Hencken’s new plan would be providing.

“Aid is only for students who are receiving $4,968 per year,” Zieren said.

In addition, the ISAC will only cover the full-time status of 15 semester hours of tuition beginning next year compared to previous years when ISAC would cover an overload of over 15 semester hours.

In effect, the new financial aid plan would allow students taking an overload to get assistance in paying for the extra course work.

Zieren said she is still researching U of I’s Tuition Grant Program so she did not know all of the details.

Before the plan could become effective, the Board of Trustees would have to accept the proposal.