The Department of Education's announcement that it will change federal rules for financial aid will leave many college students shouldering more of their educational costs.
The change, which is expected to cut $300 million in federal spending for the 2005-2006 academic year, would result in at least 1.3 million students receiving smaller Pell Grants, and would make another 89,000 students who would have been eligible for the aid ineligible to receive it at all. Experts predict the impact of the federal changes will be felt at nearly every college and university in the country.
Congress created Pell Grants in 1972. It has been so successful that, today, about one-third of all college students receive some aid under the program. Most Pell recipients come from families with incomes of less than $35,000 per year. Programs like Pell Grants provide true financial aid because the money does not have to be repaid.
Officials in the Department of Education said that the change is necessary because the old formula was based on outdated information. They point out that almost half of the 5.3 million Pell Grant recipients will not be affected by the change, and that there will be more recipients than ever because more low-income students are going to college. But the latest change affects not only poor students, but also those from families at the lower end of the middle class who struggle to pay for college with small quantities of aid. Pell Grants are for undergraduates who have no professional or advanced degrees.
The maximum grant under the current formula is $4,050 per year, an amount that does not cover all costs for a year of school, even at most state institutions. The latest change will affect parents who earn at least $15,000 per year in every state except Connecticut and New Jersey. The states most seriously affected will be New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and Wisconsin, according to the New York Times. Any change that will make free federal aid less available to those who need it most will exacerbate a disturbing trend in higher education.
Already this nation is fostering a system of higher education that is unequal. Although more people of color are attending college, access to the most prestigious universities -- whether moderately priced and public, such as the University of Texas at Austin, or private and expensive, like Yale -- is still not representative of the population.
Our nation is a diverse place where the numbers of racial and ethnic minority groups are increasing, and the gap between the socioeconomic haves and have-nots is widening. We need equal access to education, so we should be accelerating programs that make college more affordable rather than cutting funding that would increase opportunities for the less privileged.
Changing qualifications for Pell Grants will make some ambitious, bright and hardworking students from families on the edge of poverty hesitate to go to college. In the wealthiest country in the world, this should be inexcusable.
Starita Smith is an award-winning writer and editor based in Denton, Texas, where she is a doctorate student in sociology at University of North Texas. She is a former reporter and editor at the Austin American-Statesman, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and the Gary (Ind.) Post-Tribune.