MATT ROBLES/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA President Peter Likins speaks at Friday's Arizona Board of Regents meeting in the Student Union Memorial Center.

Available financial aid dollars for Arizona universities will increase by 13.9 percent or $22.6 million for the 2006 fiscal year. The increase, approved at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting Friday, will allocate $68.2 million to the UA.

According to the financial aid executive summary, the UA had $62.6 million to distribute last fiscal year in financial aid. The additional $5.6 million for 2006 will provide aid to more students and a larger sum to those already receiving aid, said UA President Peter Likins.

The larger amount of aid money is a result of factors such as increases in tuition revenue and an increase in the value of scholarships resulting from increased tuition, Likins said.

In accordance with board policy, Likins said the total amount of aid will be divided between students receiving assistance based on merit and those based on need.

John Nametz, director of student financial aid, said students receiving merit-based financial aid are evaluated by scholastic or athletic talent. He said students in need of aid are evaluated by the remaining dollar amount for tuition, housing and books after family contributions or student loans.

In the summary, board policy states at least 50 percent of resident undergraduate aid must be distributed to students demonstrating financial need; 30 percent must be awarded on the basis of merit. At the UA, additional money is also awarded to students in both categories of need and merit, causing all three universities' figures to be divided by more than 100 percent.

According to the board of regents' executive summary, the UA is the only one of the three Arizona institutions to reward a greater percentage of aid to students on merit, rather than need.

This is because the UA has more students receiving aid based on merit than any other Arizona institution, said Rick Kroc, vice president of enrollment management. However, Nametz said the figures may be revised to increase the amount of need-based financial aid to make the figures more balanced.

As of now, the summary states for the FY 2006, $10 million will be distributed to students in need, $15.3 million for merit and $10 million for students who qualify for both.

Of the $68.2 million in financial aid, 71.6 percent is dedicated to merit. Both Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University plan to distribute a larger percentage of money to students in need rather than merit, with ASU directing 70 percent to need and NAU directing 72.8 percent.

"We want to attract students of extraordinary talents," Likins said. "We want to increase diversity as well as quality - which is not difficult if you're willing to put financial aid on the table."

Likins said the topic of financial aid has "become a new phenomenon" as regents' concerns about supplying adequate financial aid have been raised.

Gary Stuart, president of the board of regents, said the initiative to improve financial aid began two years ago, when Arizona universities had the lowest tuitions in America and still received a D grade in affordability because the universities were not supplying an adequate amount of financial aid.

Stuart said this opened the regents' eyes to the growing need of financial aid and affordability issues for students and families.

"Affordability is as high of a policy as we make it," Stuart said. "This goal (to increase aid) is something we need to follow closely."