Pell Grant changes a travesty

The following editorial appeared Wednesday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

To understand how irresponsible it is for the Bush administration to limit eligibility to federal Pell Grants, consider the following.

This year, the average tuition for undergraduate education at four-year public universities jumped 10.5 percent. That national average is now at $11,354 yearly, representing difficulty for even middle-class families to send their children to college.

Now think of low-income students, the folks for whom Pell Grants were intended.

The move by the Department of Education to recalculate eligibility formulas for college financial aid coincides with more minorities and low-income students generally trying to get into college.

Unfortunately for those low-income students who had been depending on the Pell Grants, merit-based aid, which favors students who go to the best schools, has grown faster than need-based aid, on which low-income students rely heavily. …

Supporters of the limit say the program had to be revamped to allow for larger awards to the neediest students.

This doesn’t wash. When Congress, in its recent omnibus spending bill, passed the measure that allowed the Education Department to do its recalculation, it froze the maximum amount of Pell Grants at $4,050.

So the Department of Education bumps students from eligibility while also reducing the amount other students get, and Congress freezes the maximum allowable to students. How this helps the neediest students is puzzling since funding increases don’t keep pace with the amount of need and the maximum grant allowable to individuals has not kept up with the cost of college.

The recalculation will save the federal government an estimated $300 million yearly. But there is a saying about being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

It now appears that between 80,000 and 90,000 students will be eliminated altogether from the Pell Grants, and an additional 1.3 million will receive reduced amounts. The recalculation will force what is described as “modest” cuts in other state and federal financial aid to other undergraduates.

Meanwhile, the president says he wants to privatize parts of Social Security, with costs estimated at a trillion or two over a decade, and insists that he wants to make his tax cuts permanent.

Yes, there is much here that fails to add up, and Pell Grants are only one part of the equation.

At a time when more low-income students are becoming eligible for college, when U.S. competitiveness is at risk, when demand for assistance is becoming greater because college is becoming more expensive and unattainable for even middle-income families, these limits on low-income students are unconscionable.

Congress must remedy this when it returns next year.