Pell Grant funding will continue for two years under debt-ceiling proposals by both Republican John Boehner and Democrat Harry Reid. Both congressional leaders propose cutting the interest subsidy on Stafford loans to graduate students to fund Pell, notes Higher Ed Watch. But the future is murky.
As Ed Money Watch reported last week, any proposal that Congress ultimately adopts to reduce federal spending would include caps on annual appropriations for future years, and would be enforced by across-the-board spending cuts called “sequestration.” These caps on so-called discretionary spending will squeeze education funding over the coming years as nearly all federal education programs are funded through the annual appropriations process.
More than a third of Pell Grant recipients attend community colleges, notes the American Association of Community Colleges in a policy brief. With the federal aid, students are more likely to enroll full time and to cut work hours, boosting their chances of earning a credential.
However, federal expenditures for Pell Grants have increased by 182 percent in five years, making the $35 billion program an attractive target for budget cutters, notes Community College Times.
“Discussions on Capitol Hill about changes to the Pell Grant program should factor into them the real lives and people who could be impacted,” said AACC President and CEO Walter Bumphus. “The Pell Grant program has historically been a vital support for many seeking to better themselves.”
. . . “More people are turning to community colleges to help them keep their dreams of higher education alive, and they need funding to stay in school and earn the credentials needed for the workplace,” he said.
Traditionally, Pell Grants have enjoyed bipartisan support, but those days may be over. Republican and Democratic lawmakers clashed on the growing cost of Pell Grants when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified Wednesday before the Senate panel that oversees K-12 spending, notes Ed Week’s Politics K-12. Aid for low-income college students is “eating up an ever-larger share of the U.S. Department of Education’s nearly $70 billion budget.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the K-12 spending committee, admonished Duncan about runaway spending at the department. He said the department has requested a more than 20 percent increase in spending compared with two years ago.
But Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the panel’s chairman, pointed out that most of that money is Pell Grants. “What’s going on is, we’ve got a lot of people out of work,” he said. “Most of this increase is because of the increased use of Pell grants.”
Joining a conference call earlier this week, President Obama thanked student leaders for a letter on the importance of student aid. However, he made no promises.
