"College students are graduating with deep student loan debt and
borrowers are increasingly defaulting on their loans. We must make
college more affordable and accessible now. In order to lower student
loan debt, we need to increase grant aid—money for college that students
don’t have to repay.
“We need a significant boost to the Pell
grant program, the nation’s premier, need-based aid program, which
provides need-based scholarship money to more than 7 million students of
modest means. However, its value has been eroding since the program’s
inception. When the Pell Grant program was created in 1976 it covered
72% of the average cost of attending a public four-year college, but
only 32% of costs in 2008. The President’s plan strengthens Pell Grants
by investing $40 billion over the next ten years to annually increase
the maximum grant award. This investment is long overdue, and will make
several hundred thousand more students eligible for the grants.
“The
budget reconciliation bill must increase student aid to the maximum
level possible. To pay for this increase, the bill will cut wasteful
subsidies currently flowing to banks and lenders, and divert those funds
to students.
“If student aid reform is cut from the final
reconciliation package, then large banks and lenders will prevail over
struggling students and their families. We urge our champions to hold
firm and encourage all lawmakers concerned with keeping college
affordable to support a reconciliation bill that fully funds the Pell
Grant program.”
