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Debate Over Pell Grants
By Nicole M. Byrd
The higher education community was quite pleased when it appeared that the Bush administration and the Democratic congressional leadership were in agreement on the need to increase the award limit on Pell Grants. After years of the award amount remaining flat, each had proposed an increase to help meet rising tuition costs.
However, the administration’s complete proposed fiscal 2008 budget makes clear that the proposed increase is neither an overall increase in need-based funds nor an increase at the individual level for low-income students. To pay for the Pell increase, the administration would eliminate other need-based grant programs, such as the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) program. For students who now receive both SEOG and Pell funds (there is a significant amount of overlap), that could mean that they receive less overall aid. SEOG awards can be up to $4,000 a year, while t he proposed Pell increase would be gradual, reaching $5,400 in 2012. An American Council on Education analysis estimates that 1 million students who receive SEOG funds would lose money the first year, while the U.S. Department of Education claims that 300,000 students would receive more aid under the new proposals. Sarah Martinez Tucker, undersecretary for education, says that part of the rationale for the proposed change is that the Pell program is much cheaper to administer than the SEOG. She also says that some students would receive funds from the relatively new Academic Competitiveness Grants.
Whether Congress will agree to eliminate the SEOG program remains uncertain, as similar past proposals by the administration to scrap the Perkins Loan and Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership programs were resisted by legislators. Senator Edward Kennedy, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is already on record opposing the idea of cutting other grant programs to increase Pell. It appears that the debate has only just begun.
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