About 3,700 Kansas University students will learn this week they will receive additional financial aid for the coming school year.

The notifications, mailed Saturday, are a result of tuition increases approved June 26 by the Kansas Board of Regents. KU officials said they would set aside 20 percent of the tuition increase  or about $1.7 million  for need-based aid.

The regents’ late decision left workers in KU’s Office of Student Financial Aid scrambling to update aid reports.

“We had so much excitement the last two weeks,” said Brenda Maigaard, the office’s director.

The grants are going to students who had additional financial need because of the tuition increases, based on a federal formula. Undergraduate students’ aid applications were due by April 23; for graduate students, the deadline was April 2.

KU will distribute $1.46 million to 3,036 undergraduates and $258,000 to 673 graduate students, Maigaard said.

She said 73 percent of the grants were awarded to Kansas residents, with the remainder going to nonresidents. KU’s student body is constituted of 67 percent residents and 33 percent nonresidents.

Most of the undergraduate grants came in $500-per-year installments. Most graduate students received $400.

The tuition increase is 25.2 percent, or $600 per year, for undergraduate, resident students taking 15 hours per semester. Maigaard said the tuition grants were meant to cover the larger-than-usual increase, not the “maintenance” increase approved in typical years.

She said her office might have more grants to award before fall if students who received notification this week receive outside scholarships that add to their aid. That would free up more money.

“Our goal is to maintain the affordability for our students to attend the University of Kansas,” she said.

 Staff writer Terry Rombeck can be reached at 832-7145.