In an attempt to remain competitive in the distribution of financial aid to students, the University of Akron decided to stop converting unused scholarship awards to cash for students with other scholarships.

Affected students are complaining about “bait and switch”.

Officials at Akron, a 27,000-student public institution in Ohio, wanted to free up financial aid money to go after students in the competitive northeastern Ohio market. To do so, they decided to stop converting university-backed scholarships into cash awards to students, starting this fall.

In the past, the university has given students cash refunds if they were able to cover tuition and other expenses, including on-campus housing and meals, without using all their university-backed award money. This affects top students who received significant scholarships from elsewhere, including organizations such as the Lions Club.

Last fall, about 923 students received an average of $1,900 in cash back from Akron because the students had university scholarship money left over after they covered their expenses. (The figure includes federal Pell Grant recipients and Pell money, but Akron officials were unable to say how much was Pell money versus Akron’s own. Refunds of Pell money will continue unchanged.)

Now, students argue in a petition that Akron is “failing to follow through” on offers it made the students when they enrolled.

While the aid restriction itself is not unusual, there remains a question about how Akron handled its change – which obviously caught students by surprise.

Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said that when the association lobbies about changes to federal aid policy, it always seeks to make any changes affect only new borrowers. That’s so that existing students’ expectations about existing policies can be met.

“The ideal,” Draeger said, “is that schools would adhere to that same standard. The financial reality of what goes on on campuses may not make that feasible.”

The student petition, signed so far by about 580 people, says scholarship recipients worked hard in high school for the money and then chose to attend Akron because of the scholarship offers.

“They qualified, they were promised an amount, and they continue to work hard in order to maintain those scholarships,” the petition says. “Now that they may not receive that full amount, they will be asking themselves, ‘Was all my hard work in vain?’ ”