As many college students are watching their school bill slowly increase in size, some opportunities to help are being discontinued.

The Federal Perkins Loan is a program that provides low interest rates to help students with financial needs and afford the cost of post-secondary education, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

When a student applies for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), they have started the application process for a Perkins Loan.

The Perkins Loan was created in 1958 and was a part of the Higher Education Act of 1965. This act is to be renewed each year through the Senate.

The program provided $36 billion in aid to 30 million low-income families, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

It was the oldest federal student-loan program, until Sept. 10.

On Sept. 10, the Federal Perkins Loan Program was discontinued by Senator Lamar Alexander whose goal is to “simplify student aid.”

The Perkins loan was overshadowed by the Stafford loan program, which is subsidized and unsubsidized loans for eligible students to help cover the cost of higher education. Another problem that was seen with the Perkins loan was its overly complicated nature.

Under federal law, the Perkins program was set to expire at midnight on Sept. 30, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Many supporters of the program pushed for extending the deadline in an effort to save the program.

The bill to extend the deadline passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 5. However, the Senate is where it went wrong.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Republican Chairman of the Education Committee, stopped it from passing.

Senator Alexander is in charge of renewing the Higher Education Act in the Senate, yet he has guided his priorities towards a bill that will simplify the federal financial aid programs and application process.

This bill, Financial Aid Simplification and Transparency Act (FAST), will eliminate FAFSA by taking the 10-page application down to a postcard that will ask two simple questions: What is your family size? And, what was your household income two years ago?

This act will condense federal grant and loan programs, enable students to use Pell grants, and discourages over-borrowing.

“We are constantly discussing all aspects of federal, state and institutional financial aid.  This most recent action by Congress is disappointing,” said Dan Preston, Vice President for enrollment services, and Keri Burke, Director of Financial Aid at Linfield.

As opportunities for the Perkins loan are disintegrating for students, it is effecting colleges, too.

Colleges invest their own money and in turn experience risk by default, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. For every dollar that Congress provides to the Perkins Loan Program, colleges were required to put in $.33 cents.

If the program does not continue, Congress does not add money to the program, thus neither do the colleges.

The Perkins loan has been slowly withering away for the last decade and it took its last breath on the last day of September.

The lack of federal reimbursements to students and colleges have caused the amount of money available for aid to slowly decline.

In 2012-13, the program provided aid to just over half a million students, which is roughly half the amount of students that received aid in 1970, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 2014-15, $408,153 Federal Perkins Loan funds was disbursed to Linfield’s McMinnville campus student body, according to Jennifer Knight, Associate Director of Financial Aid.

“It is a shame that a funding source for low income students has been eliminated without an adequate replacement fund.  It was a political move that hurts students,” said Preston and Burke.