Congress has done the nation a great disservice by approving a bill that could result in cuts to Pell grants. The grants, which are usually awarded to lower-income college students, were capped at $4,050 for the third year in a row, ignoring the realities of inflation and soaring tuition costs.
This change has been in the works since the summer of 2003, when it was buried in a huge omnibus bill. After opposition from Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ), the change was suspended for a year in December of 2003. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi claims she only supported the bill to keep the federal government operating.
What’s really changing isn’t Pell grant funding directly, but the formula the government uses to determine Pell grant eligibility. Experts say that up to 90,000 students will lose their Pell grants, while about a million students will have their grants cut by an average of $300. Moreover, many states and private aid agencies use the federal formula to calculate aid eligibility, so many students will be doubly penalized from the Pell formula changes.
As part of the omnibus, Missouri is getting some pork funding (literally): the bill gives the Show-me state $50,000 for feral hog control. Missouri lawmakers clearly didn’t bring home enough bacon, though; the $50,000 is a tiny fraction of the $60 million of pork in the omnibus. And compared to the $23 billion in pork Congress allocated for fiscal year 2004 (according to Citizens Against Government Waste), that $60 million is barely a warm up for what we can expect from Congress this year.
Four thousand dollars may not seem like much compared to the University’s $40,000 sticker price, but it means an awful lot to those that can barely afford to come here as it is. We’re not holding our breath, but Congress still has the chance to do no harm by not changing Pell grant funding. Better yet, it can do the right thing by adjusting Pell funding upwards to reflect the rising cost of higher education.
The University has pledged to make up the losses for the eight percent of students that get Pell grants. In fact, Student Financial Services is sensitive to all fluctuations in circumstance. This is a great policy, since it ensures that unexpected surprises (like the Pell grant cuts) don’t prevent the neediest from finishing their education at one of the nation’s best universities. Unfortunately, this policy only works because of the Univesity’s substantial endowment and financial aid expenditures; students at less affluent universities will feel the hit.
However, as Erika Simmons alleges in her letter to the editor below, the University’s financial aid policy may not be great to begin with. There still are students who can barely afford to study here, and our admissions are shockingly (for an institution of this caliber) not need-blind. The University, one of the wealthiest in the country, has the money to be more generous in financial aid; all it takes is a shifting of priorities. As much as we love the new buildings, the money could be much better spent keeping students out of the poverty Simmons lived in.
In the holiday spirit, we’d like to see the University and Congress pledge to cast off their Scrooge policies of financial aid. Even if that means holding a building back. People are more important than construction projects.