Yahoo – If life without Penn State football on a Saturday afternoon is unthinkable for many residents of central Pennsylvania, then imagine life without the university at all. That’s the prospect facing the university as the Department of Education begins its investigation into potential violations of the 1990 Clery Act (agreed to by PSU in 1991) to report criminal violations on campus. The federal government could remove the school’s eligibility to receive financial aid, including Pell Grants, and strip it of its regional accreditation. Penn State, with the highest tuition of any state school in the country, is heavily reliant on federal funding. The move, should it go through, could end Penn State’s ability to affectively recruit and educate students. Experts believe the Department of Education won’t take the most severe steps since it would affect tens of thousands of students not involved in the football program. The NCAA could issue a separate “death penalty,” a punishment so severe that it would end Penn State as a football franchise for the foreseeable future. For more, read The Department of Education Could Be a Bigger Threat to Penn State than the NCAA.

 

To our students: RSC will keep track of the Department of Education’s ruling on Penn State’s financial aid eligibility and update you accordingly. Penn State is not currently among the nation’s top financial aid colleges, but these moves could make the school very expensive. We’ll attempt to adjust our financial aid estimates as the situation warrants.