With the recent passing of a state budget, students at colleges and universities now have access to key state grants that help to fund many educations.

Patty Hladio, Slippery Rock University director of financial aid, said that since the state budget has been approved, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency has indicated that disbursements will be made to the schools after the state Department of Treasury provides PHEAA with its funds.

"They expect disbursement to the schools will be in about four weeks," Hladio said. "I am sure they are working as quickly as they will be able to, and they have given us a heads up to think about four weeks."

SRU found a way to protect the students there from being hurt by the nearly four month budget holdup by providing the equivalent of PHEAA grant funds through university funds. Hladio said SRU will reimburse itself now that the state budget has passed.

"Students won't have to worry about it come spring semester," Hladio said of student aid. "What PHEAA has received is basically going to allow for level funding from last year."

SRU has about 2,800 students who receive state grants, amounting to a total of more than $7 million a year. It has 8,600 total students.

"I am pleased the budget has been approved and our students' education won't be affected for the spring semester," Hladio said.

Julianne Louttit, director of financial aid at Butler County Community College, said the school is in the middle of processing state grant money to the students through the college's fund.

"We still don't know when we will get the money from the state," Louttit said. "It could be six to eight weeks, but the college is distributing the money because we know it is coming."

Louttit said there may be a one percent decrease in the funds from PHEAA, which could cause problems if the school distributed more money that did not include that decrease. Louttit said BC3 is waiting to see a dollar amount to avoid complications.

"If we would pay the grant and it was the incorrect amount, we would have to adjust all of the spring awards," Louttit said.

About 600 students are to receive the grants that average $300 individually. Louttit said the college is deciding to give the funds to help students plan for next semester.

"Our concern is that students need to start to register for spring, and if they still owe a bill because state money hasn't come in, we didn't want to penalize them for that," Louttit said.

BC3 has a total of 4,300 students.