The following editorial appeared in Monday’s Washington Post:

It’s the rare and fortunate family that doesn’t have to dig hard to come up with college tuition. Now the Senate Finance Committee wants to overhaul and strengthen tax measures designed to cushion the impact of this education sticker shock. That’s a fine goal, but lawmakers’ chief concern should be putting college within reach of those who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

The current hodgepodge of tax credits and deductions gives a break to middle-income families but does almost nothing for the significant share of families with children who do not earn enough to owe income taxes.

A married couple with one child in college and another under 17 has to earn $24,300 to begin to be able to benefit from these tax breaks; their full value does not kick in until income reaches $42,850, according to calculations by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Yes, students from low-income families are eligible for Pell grants (maximum $4,310 for the next school year), but the grants do not come close to covering costs. Meanwhile, the money that Congress plows into college tax breaks has mushroomed from $1.2 billion in 1995 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to $11.1 billion in 2005. That approaches the $13.1 billion in 2005 spent on grants for poor students. Small wonder, then, that high-performing, low-income students graduate from four-year colleges at lower rates than low-performing, high-income students.

Lawmakers ought to worry less about the family that makes $100,000 a year and has to stretch to send a child to an expensive private college and more about those for whom four-year public colleges and two-year community colleges remain out of reach. Credits should be at least partially refundable. That would channel some of the benefit to those who pay payroll taxes but do not earn enough to pay income taxes. In a perfect world, it would be more efficient to achieve the same result by increasing the maximum size of Pell grants, but as a political matter that is not likely to happen. Lawmakers should also expand the definition of an educational expense to include books, supplies and, possibly, room and board.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has supported refundable credits in the past; it’s important that he do so again. But a measure introduced by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and co-sponsored by three other members of the committee would extend tax breaks to couples earning as much as $180,000.

This may appeal to voters whom Schumer is trying to woo for Democrats. As a policy matter, however, Schumer has his priorities backward.

We don’t buy that a family earning $180,000 a year is in need of tender loving tax care from Schumer and his colleagues.