Department of Education grants Eastern Gateway Community College’s Free College Benefit Program a reprieve

STEUBENVILLE -- The Department of Education has granted Eastern Gateway Community College's Free College Benefit Program a reprieve.

Late Monday, Jeremy Early, the department's Midwest division chief for the Federal Student Aid Program, said the college can continue to offer its Free College program to new and returning students for the fall semester.

Early is slated to meet with EGCC President Michael Geoghegan Wednesday, but informed him of his decision by phone Monday because he "did not want to wait for the Wednesday meeting due to the (semester starting) in two weeks," EGCC said.

The decision means the college can continue to disperse Pell grants and the free college benefit for the fall semester.

"We are thrilled to continue to provide our students with the Free College Benefit," the college said in a statement. "We hope this lessens the confusion and stress for our students. We will follow up with an update on Wednesday after the meeting."

The cease-and-desist order grew out of concern that the program violates prohibitions against assessing charges to federal Pell grant recipients that are higher than what non-Pell recipients are paying. The college says "scholarships" cover costs for non-Pell students, but in his letter announcing the cease-and-desit order Early complained "outside entities provide virtually no funds. EGCC is merely waiving/writing off all non-Pell/state grant charges on student accounts, and falsely making it appear that the students are being funded by outside entities. Essentially, under this program, students who receive Pell funding are being charged for the program but students not receiving Pell are not."

In an interview last week, Geoghegan had said the college covers the additional cost, "so whatever Pell comes in, with other sources of revenue we're able to cover the additional costs of running the college so we are paying for it. Basically, it's coming out of our bottom line."