The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a compromise spending bill that would have blocked future Pell Grant increases. The 224-209 vote on Nov. 17 included unanimous Democratic opposition, which was bolstered by votes from 22 Republicans and one Independent.
College groups opposed the bill specifically because it would have kept federal Pell Grants at a maximum $4,050 per student, an amount that has remained stagnant despite inflation and tuition increases, according to Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).
The bill would also have kept financial aid programs at their 2005 levels.
“At a time when we should be striving to make our students the most competitive in the world, this [bill] would have cut our investment in education by $59 million below current levels,” Hoyer stated in a Nov. 18 press release. “It would have frozen Pell Grants for college students for the fourth year in a row, even as tuition and fees have increased by 46 percent since 2001.”
Pell Grants provide need-based aid to more than 5 million low- and middle-income undergraduate students. Their families pay the costs of postsecondary education and vocational training, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Nov. 16 news release. However, funding for the federal grant has fallen far behind other aid programs, according to UCSD Director of Financial Aid Vincent De Anda.
“The Pell Grants have lost substantial ground in real dollars over the last six years,” De Anda said. “Federal Pell Grants are the weakest link in the triumvirate of grant programs that I use to fund our students. Cal Grants and university grants have increased considerably every year, as fees increase, while Pell Grants have steadily decreased in real dollars.”
A budget outline passed by the House Appropriations Committee in June would have increased the Pell Grant maximum to $4,100, but the final spending bill, drafted by a conference committee between the House and Senate, opted for keeping the maximum at the same level as years before.
The decision to not increase grant funding makes access to higher education increasingly difficult for some students, according to De Anda.
“In my opinion, there appears to be a constant, measured withdrawal at the federal level from funding student financial aid,” De Anda said. “If the feds did their part in increasing Pell Grants, students would not have to borrow and work as much.”
Republican opposition to the bill was largely due to a $1 billion cut to pork-barrel initiatives, as well as fierce lobbying from college groups that oppose a cut to student loans that was passed by the House (see story on page 1).
It is unclear how the vote decision will affect college students and whether legislation that follows will allocate more funds to higher education. Though the future of the Pell Grant program remains unknown, Democrats celebrated the rejection of the bill as a “tremendous defeat” for Republicans, according to the minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“It was defeated because it had the wrong priorities and did not address the needs of the American people,” Pelosi stated in a press release. “This bill cut our federal investment in education, it abandoned job training programs and it fails our public health system. This bill got what it deserved.”
