The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to reauthorize a key student financial aid measure, setting the stage for a possible increase in the maximum Pell Grant. Congressmen also agreed to an amendment that could save Georgetown millions of dollars in federal funding.
Passed along party lines by a 221-199 vote Thursday, the $70 billion proposal reauthorizes the Higher Education Act, the massive law that funds and manages all federal student aid programs. Republicans said that the proposal would help lower-income students finance their education.
The bill will now head to the Senate, where it must be passed before it can be sent to President Bush to sign into law.
The bill contains provisions that increase the maximum Pell Grant, the tuition subsidy offered to undergraduate students, from $5,800 to $6,000, and that extend the grant’s availability from nine months to one year, allowing students to use it for courses taken during the summer.
Cyndy Littlefield, federal relations director at the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, said that an increase in the maximum Pell Grant ultimately depends on how much money congressional appropriators decide to allocate to the program, however. Congress authorizes terms for the loans every six years, but annually determines the size of loans for the coming year. The maximum Pell Grant has been set by Congress at $4,050 for several years.
An amendment passed to the original version of the bill eliminated a proposed change in the formula that governs distribution of funds to campus-based aid programs like the Federal Work-Study program and Perkins Loans. The formula favored opening these programs to new institutions, but critics argued that this would create a financial loss for some universities like Georgetown, which have been participating in the programs for years.
Georgetown lobbied for the amendment against the altered formula, said Scott Fleming, assistant to the university president for federal relations.
“Our position all along has been that if they want to use more additional money to help other schools . they do it in a way that doesn’t take out money from our pockets,” Fleming said. “We have a great need of the money we have now.”
A Democratic proposal to slash in half the 6.8 percent interest rate that borrowers have to pay on federal student loans starting this summer was defeated during debate on the reauthorization. Republicans argued that the amendment did not provide funding to make up for the money that would be lost if the rate was cut.
Jasmine Harris, legislative director for the United States Student Association, the largest student advocacy group in the nation, said that although the bill includes some positive measures, it still needs attention.
“I think that overall some provisions are steps in right direction,” Harris said. “But it does not accomplish the mission of higher education reauthorization, which [is] . to take stride in improving the access [to higher education].”
