http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...dents_slashed/
US aid for college students slashed
Change in rules to affect almost 1.3m
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | November 23, 2004
Nearly a quarter of low- and moderate-income college students who currently qualify for federal Pell grants will see their awards reduced or eliminated under a change in federal rules that Congress allowed in its new spending bill passed over the weekend, according to an estimate from higher education analysts.
About 85,000 of the 5.2 million students currently eligible to receive Pell grants will become ineligible. And 1.2 million others will get a smaller award under a new formula the government will use to determine how much families can afford to pay for college, according to estimates from the American Council on Education, or ACE. The change will take effect for students starting or returning to classes next summer or fall.
Higher education officials worry that the change, estimated to save the government about $300 million in next year's budget, will hurt students already struggling to pay for college.
''Nobody knows if the change will actually lead anybody to abandon their plans for postsecondary education," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at ACE. ''The best-case scenario is that families will have to dig deeper to pay for college, perhaps by working more hours or taking out more loans."
The effects could be much more widespread than the council's estimates suggest. The same federal formulas are used to calculate federally subsidized loans, state aid, and grants that colleges make to their students, said Brian K. Fitzgerald, staff director of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.
The change was proposed last year by the US Department of Education. It was blocked at the time by congressional legislation, but this year Republican leaders allowed the change to go through.
The new Department of Education aid formula was intended to reflect a reduction in income taxes in many states, but some analysts say the tax burden is measured in a flawed way that does not reflect actual increases in taxes in the past several years. The formula is supposed to be updated every year, but it had not been adjusted in many years.
Some Republicans say the formula needed to be updated to help deal with the Pell program's $4 billion deficit and to ultimately increase the maximum award.
Pell grants, the main federal program to help low- and moderate-income families pay for college, will cost $12.5 billion next year, according to ACE estimates. Although the $4,050 maximum grant has been virtually frozen for four years, about 1.2 million more students have become eligible for the Pell grants in that time, leading to the budget squeeze.
It is not clear yet which students will lose their Pell grants, but Fitzgerald said it most likely will be those with family incomes at the higher levels of Pell eligibility, perhaps $35,000 to $40,000, Fitzgerald said. These students already receive far less than the maximum grant. Many other students with lower family incomes will see their grants reduced by up to a few hundred dollars, Fitzgerald estimated.
Families will learn whether they are losing grant money when they receive information about their aid packages for next year.
Meanwhile, the Pell grant is covering less of the cost of a college education each year. The average Pell grant covered a third of the cost of the average four-year public college in the 1980-81 school year. Last year, the average Pell grant covered a quarter of the cost, according to the College Board.
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at
bombardieri@globe.com.
I KNOW!!!!!!!!
I'm glad I'll be done w/ undergrad this school year!
), but I don' t know how I will be able to afford graduate school if I don't get some help
. I will definitely be praying this one through.
about what I'm going to do if I decide to go to graduate school. This is a good lesson on why we need to vote so things like this will be less likely to happen.
PELL GRANT
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