Georgetown administrators had lobbied intensely for the continuation of the Perkins Loan program, which provided about 1,500 Georgetown students with loans averaging $4,500 during this academic year.
The resolution would also forgive the $4.3 billion deficit facing the Pell Grant program and require Congress to find $7 billion in savings from cuts to student loans or changes made to the Higher Education Act, the massive bill that governs the nation’s student aid programs. The savings are part of a reconciliation process to help reduce the budget deficit.
The budget resolution is nonbinding and provides a framework for how money will be spent on federal student loans, said Alexa arrero, press secretary for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. No final decision on funding for student aid programs, including Pell Grants and Perkins Loans, will be reached until Congress passes its appropriations measures this fall.
“At this point in the process, no single program has been targeted for any specific savings,” she said. “Over the course of the next several months, the committees will work to find savings within their respective jurisdictions while the appropriators will begin the annual process of crafting appropriations bills.”
Unlike Pell Grants, which are available only for undergraduates, Perkins Loans are open to graduate students as well. The loans serve middle- and lower-income students, and provided approximately 673,000 students with an average loan of $1,875 each in 2004 for a total of $1.263 billion. Although only 3 percent of college students receive Perkins Loans nationwide, 25 percent of Georgetown students receive the loans as part of their financial aid packages.
Clyde Wilcox, professor of government at Georgetown, said he was optimistic that many provisions will work their way through the appropriations process later this year and become law.
“These loans have reasonably strong support in the U.S. Senate, so I would think they will make it into the appropriations bills,” he said. “But they probably won’t pass all the appropriations bills. . They never do.”
To help eliminate the $4.3 billion shortfall that the Pell Grant program is facing, lawmakers are also attempting to change the formula used to find the expected family contribution to each student’s tuition. According to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office last week, proposed changes made to the Pell Grant system will decrease the number of students eligible for the grants.
“[Our] analysis shows that the 2004 update will likely result in a decrease in Pell Grants for about 35 percent of students, and an additional 81,000 applicants [1.5 percent] will no longer be eligible for the grant,” the report said.
The budget resolution does call for an increase in $100 for the maximum Pell Grant – at a cost of approximately $400 million. Bush’s initial plan had proposed an increase of $500.
During his first term, the president successfully petitioned Congress to increase Pell Grants by 47 percent. The grant has remained at $4,050 for the past three years, however, due to a sharp increase in the number of students eligible to receive the grants.
“I believe the budget resolution itself could allow for elimination of the approximately $4.3 billion Pell Grant shortfall,” Marraro said. “However, I believe that is again a decision that will be left to the appropriations committee.”
Scott Fleming (SFS ’72), Georgetown’s assistant to the president for federal relations, who led the university’s lobbying efforts against the proposal to eliminate Perkins Loans, said he remains hopeful that Georgetown students will continue to get financial assistance from established federal programs like Perkins.
“I’m encouraged by what the budget did,” he said. “We’re not out of the woods, but the pressure is off a little bit.”
Fleming said he will continue to fight on Capitol Hill, however, and is still trying to mobilize students to lobby for Perkins Loans.
“Every student at Georgetown has a stake in these federal aid cuts,” he said. “Even if you receive no financial aid, you are still paying for the cuts [because of increased tuition]. It has a bearing on everybody here.”
Dante Randazzo, external policy director for GUSA, is also spreading the word on Perkins Loans and organizing events for the summer. He said he is reaching out to on-campus student groups like the Black Student Association, College Democrats, College Republicans and Hoya Outreach Programs and Education.
“We’re focusing on creating a groundswell of support,” Randazzo said. “Anything that takes place on the Hill will take place in the summer. Right now we’re trying to get a large enough group of student support on campus and at other campuses in D.C. so that when we do go to the Capitol this summer to meet with individual offices and to stage rallies on the steps, we’ll be able to make an impressive showing.”
Randazzo said he has already contacted students at local universities to build support.
“We’re also taking this outside of D.C., as this is a national problem,” he said. “Ideally, we’d like to see this become a national movement.”
