DES MOINES – -Students in need at Iowa’s public and private universities and community colleges have another way to pay for their education.

The Iowa College Student Aid Commission finalized allowances for this year’s Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership funding during a meeting Tuesday in Des Moines.

Julie Leeper, ICSAC director of program administration, said the Iowa grant program was allocated more than $320,000 in Federal LEAP funding and approximately $1 million in state funds.

“We have to, as a state, decide where that money should go,” she said.

“We put that money in the grant program. That program helps all students in all universities.”

Leeper said nearly half of the money was allocated to the three Regents universities, and would be used to help the “neediest students on campus.”

According to a report by the agency, Congress allocated $67 million nationally to the LEAP program, of which $37 million went toward the Supplemental Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program.

Iowa does not qualify for the supplemental program because of the state’s reduction in work-study funding, Leeper said.

“Cutting the work-study money actually cost us federal aid,” she said.

State Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, questioned why Iowa did not qualify for the supplemental funding.

“We don’t get any credit for the $40 million we scraped up for the Regents?” said Quirmbach, commission board member. “We don’t get any credit for the $9 million we gave to the community colleges when they only wanted $7 million?”

Also discussed at the meeting was the availability of Iowa Choices software to middle school and high school students.

According to the Iowa College Student Aid Commission’s Web site, Iowa Choices is a customized career information delivery system intended to help students “learn about opportunities for employment and education in Iowa.”

“We want this system to be one that encourages students to stay in Iowa,” said Janice Friedel, commission board member and administrator of the Iowa Department of Education’s Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation.