No News on Pell Grants Isn't Good News
Apparently, the rising tide of concern over student debt hasn't reached the halls of Congress.
Yesterday, a Senate subcommittee proposed its education budget. The plan fails to increase Pell scholarships for low-income students for the fifth straight year. Meanwhile, tuition and fees at public colleges are up 57 percent, according to the College Board.
These early steps in the budget process rarely make headlines, but they are important. Most programs will end up where they start. As the legislation moves along, it's hard to move money from one program to another and harder to add to the total cost of the bill.
Earlier this year, a House committee proposed a $100 increase in the maximum Pell grant to $4150. Therefore, students are likely to see an increase somewhere between zero and 2 percent.
It's a shame because Pell grants are the principal federal student aid program. Increasing them may be the easiest and most important thing Congress could do to make college more affordable.
Another problem is the middle-class squeeze. If you're VERY poor, you get far better scholarship opportunities and options than if you are merely poor or God forbid lower middle-class. While it's important to remember the poor indeed extremely important, don't forget those who are struggling to not move down the social scale.
From my last year of highschool (I took a few college courses during that year) to my graduation tuition has increased 41% but only because the students forced the university to promise they would not increase tuition by double digits for 2 years.
July 19, 2006 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink