Double Pell Grants, And Other Good Ideas

At some point, Congress is going to get around to “re-authorizing” the Higher Education Act, the federal framework for just about everything related to how our colleges work – who pays for what and what’s expected and allowed. As Congress churns through its processes, a coalition of 25 education equity and advocacy groups has made some suggestions about grants, loans and education funding.

Among the top request of Congress is that it steeply step up funding for Pell Grants, the grants that help low-income students pay for college. They want it doubled, its funding stabilized and set to grow with inflation. “The purchasing power of the Pell Grant should be increased on a path to doubling the current maximum award so that it covers at least roughly half of four-year public college cost of attendance,” their document says.

That’s a good idea. Over time, the purchasing power of the Pell has eroded. “At its peak in 1975-76, the maximum Pell award covered more than three quarters of the cost of attending a four-year public college,” the authors said, “the 2018-19 maximum award amount covers just 28% of that cost.” Going back to the mid-70s is a stretch of a comparison. But the underlying truth is there. The Pell Grant simply does not buy what it used to, and Congress should fix that by boosting it, significantly.

The group says, “The automatic adjustment to the annual [Pell] grant amount to account for inflation should be permanently restored.” If other government benefit programs have cost-of-living allowances, the Pell should too.

The coalition also wants Pell Grants restored to incarcerated students and expanded to certain undocumented students. While clearly more controversial, that’s also sound policy. If there are two life paths, one through college and the other around it, everyone has an interest in putting as many people as possible the ‘through college’ one. And we probably have an ever greater interest in the college path for people who have the most, less-productive alternatives. That’s the core of Pell Grant. And cutting it off from the people who need it most makes little sense.

The FAFSA, the form prospective students use to apply for college aid, asks about drug convictions. This coalition is right to say it should not.

“Congress should carefully approach any changes to allow short-term programs to be paid for with Pell Grants by ensuring such programs are high-quality and lead to family-sustaining wages,” the coalition’s want list also says. That’s probably a reference to short-term, quick-fix programs such as coding bootcamps or other, frequently for-profit, supposed career paths. It’s impossible to argue that Congress should not monitor the outcomes of the education programs they are helping fund – sort term or otherwise. And, to be frank, Congress has done a pretty poor job of that recently. So, doing more, doing better, would be progress.

On loans, the group says, “Congress’s first priority should be to reduce the need to borrow to access college…” It’s hard to object to the first solution to loan debt being to make borrowing less essential. And they also want loan terms to be easier to understand and for it to be easier to get loan forgiveness in some cases. Those are all good ideas.

They also want states to be enticed into funding arrangements that would keep or even expand their financial commitments to their colleges and universities. That desire is bullseye accurate and the coalition rightly pegs the linkage between state cuts and student burdens in saying, “the withdrawal of state funding for public postsecondary institutions [has] shift[ed] the burden of paying for college to students and families.” It has. And anything that has even the hope for getting states to spend more on their own schools, for their own residents is worth getting behind.

“No doubt affordability will be a critical debate in any reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and these principles offer a promising framework. I’m glad to see that the coalition linked affordability to value — ensuring, for instance, that any expansion of Pell Grant dollars to short-term programs must provide students a pathway to the middle class and family-sustaining wages,” Amy Laitinen, Director of Higher Education at New America, one of the coalition partners, told me.

All true. And good points.

Congress probably realizes, although it’s impossible to be sure, that affordability is access and they have an obligation to provide both. Though not perfect, this coalition’s contributions and suggestions are important in those considerations and would do much to make American colleges better, for all of us.