Education advocates rally to preserve Pell Grant funding

Progressive education groups are stepping up their calls on lawmakers and the White House to reject any proposal in the ongoing deficit reduction talks that would cut funding for federal Pell Grants that provide tuition assistance for low-income students.

On Tuesday, a group of eight university presidents and a host of students and activists converged on Capitol Hill for a rally opposing any cuts to Pell Grants, which students do not have to pay back, unlike federal loans.

"The bottom line about this is that cutting Pell is near-sighted foolishness," said Mark Becker, the president of Georgia State University. "Yes, it reduces the deficit in the immediate term. It is a place to take some money out of the budget, but what it's really about is wasting our single greatest resource in this nation, and that's the talent of our people."

Maryland Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, both Democrats, also spoke at the rally.

Then, next Monday, a coalition of groups organized under the name Save Pell is planning to inundate lawmakers with a barrage of tweets, Facebook messages and other social media tools urging them to reject any calls for cuts to the program.

At issue are the hefty reductions in funding for the Pell Grant program that have already passed the House of Representatives as lawmakers are aligning behind various approaches to lowering the federal deficit, with members on the right pressing for deep cuts in federal spending. The budget that cleared the House would cut the maximum award by about 45 percent and leave some 1.5 million students ineligible for the program, The Washington Post reported this week.

Pell Grants are awarded to students who can demonstrate the need for tuition assistance through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), with the individual allocations determined by each applicant's needs and the cost of the school he or she will attend. For the most recent academic year, the maximum individual award was $5,500.

The program's defenders argue that Pell Grants are the primary instrument that makes college an attainable goal for the nation's low-income students. Without the block grant, many would be unable to cobble together the financial assistance to attend college, particularly at a time when tuition rates have been on a steep increase.

When the Pell Grant program was formed in 1972, the maximum Pell Grant covered about three-quarters of the average cost of tuition at a four-year public university. Most recently, they covered just one-third of the average cost. The grants can be used at roughly 5,400 participating postsecondary institutions, including traditional public and private schools, for-profit universities and community colleges.

The education advocates in the Save Pell coalition are arguing that the grants are vital not only as a lifeline for low-income students, but also as a key ingredient to ensuring that the United States prospers through a highly educated workforce. A recent study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce estimated that U.S. colleges and universities will need to produce 20 million more graduates by 2025 to meet the mounting demands of a professionalizing labor market.

President Obama, whose 2009 economic stimulus package pumped more than $17 billion into the Pell Grant program, has spoken often of its importance, and any compromise plan that would cut its funding can be expected to encounter opposition from congressional Democrats.

The Save Pell coalition is collecting signatures for a petition letter to Obama asking that he not give any ground on cuts to the Pell Grant program in the deficit negotiations with GOP leaders.

"Reductions to the maximum Pell Grant award and changes to the program's eligibility requirements must be 'off the table' in deficit-reduction/debt-ceiling talks. Students who count on Pell to afford college should neither lose a dollar of aid nor be cut from the program to support tax credits for the rich," the letter says.

"That's a tradeoff our country and our economy simply can't afford."

Save Pell counts more than a dozen activist and student organizations as members, including Campus Progress, the National Council of La Raza and the United States Student Association.

More From TheDegree360:

Colleges seek students who can pay full price
Tuition hikes continue at universities across the country
5 ways Obama wants to pay your tuition