COLLEGE HELPER
More than five million families could be in line for additional financial help with their college bills – and 600,000 households might get their first taste of tuition helper – if two bills passed by Congress are signed into law by President Bush.
The bills, which could give college students an additional $8,000 in college aid over a four-year period, would raise the amount of money each student can receive under the 25-year-old Pell Grant program.
More than 500,000 households in New York and New Jersey receive the grants.
“We want to get something done,” a spokeswoman for Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, told The Post. “We are ready to work with the administration.
The planned increase in the Pell Grants is “the single largest investment in college education since the GI Bill,” Miller said in a statement posted on his Web site.
Supporters of bigger Pell Grants complain the federal program has not kept pace with inflation. For example, in 1979 the maximum Pell Grant covered 99 percent of the average price of tuition, fees and room and board at a public two-year institution. Today the maximum grant covers 62 percent, according to the Washington, D.C.-based American Council on Education.
The move in Congress to increase aid, however, is expected to run into trouble at the White House.
The administration, which says it wants more help for needy students, claims lawmakers are loading up the Pell Grant bills with pork. They are not now specifically earmarked for the poor and are too costly, the Bush administration says.
The Pell Grant now has an annual maximum grant level of $4,310. Under the pending House bill, the maximum Pell Grant benefit would rise to $4,700 next year and gradually step up to $5,200 by 2011. The Senate’s version of the Pell Grant increase, which was passed without a negative vote, is more generous than the House bill. It would increase the maximum grant to $4,800 next year and $6,310 by the year 2011. These increases, if enacted into law, would add an additional $2,600 to $5,000 of aid to someone receiving four years of maximum Pell Grant help.
Income levels of eligible families would also rise.
In 1972, Pell grants were originally designed to help college or vocational school students from low-income households. Generally, the grants go to families with annual incomes of $20,000 or less, although those with incomes of up to $50,000 may be eligible under limited circumstances for some money.
About 390,000 New York households and 117,000 New Jersey households receive some Pell Grant money, according to the latest U.S Department of Education numbers.
Miller, in a reply to a question sent through e-mail, said, “It’s unfortunate the president would let a veto stand between millions of students and the college financial aid they so urgently need.”