Anne Rittman/The Hoya Aaron Polkey (COL ’02)lobbied Congress yesterday to increase federal student aid.

Speaking as one of the more than 55 percent of Georgetown undergraduates receiving financial assistance, Aaron Polkey (COL ’02) testified yesterday in front of U.S. House of Representatives legislative assistants about the necessity of providing college students with ample federally funded financial aid.

Polkey related his educational story to the crowd of approximately 50 people. He explained that he would not have been able to attend Georgetown at a cost of $36,000 annually without financial assistance.

“I am an example of a truly blessed experience,” Polkey said. “I have overcome a background of economic hardship. I could have been a statistic, but I’m an example.”

Originally from Charleston, S.C., Polkey has been active at Georgetown, serving in GUSA and New Student Orientation and handling diversity issues on campus through the NAACP. Polkey returned to Georgetown this spring after a semester spent in Tennessee working for the Al Gore presidential campaign, and will also chair the Senior Class Committee next year.

“I implore [Congress] to enlarge opportunities for federal funding so that students may attend college and are not saddled with debt,” Polkey said in his speech. By using firsthand testimonials like Polkey’s, Student Aid Alliance, a coalition of 61 organizations representing students, parents and educators, hopes to show the difference in individual lives that educational opportunity through federal aid provides. Pushing for increased federal funding for student aid, the Student Aid Alliance is currently lobbying Congress to increase funding for Pell grants and other educational programs.

Pell grants aided more than four million students with an average family income of $14,500 last year, according to the Student Aid Alliance.

Student Aid Alliance would like to see an increase in funding for student aid – preferably an increase over the 5.9 percent Department of Education increase President Bush included in his fiscal year 2002 budget proposal. Bush’s budget would increase the maximum Pell Grant for needy students by $100. However, the Senate approved a budget resolution on April 6 increasing education funding by $250 billion over the next 10 years. This increase would raise the maximum Pell Grant by $600 this year. Student Aid Alliance’s lobbying now aims to ensure this initiative will be absorbed into final spending levels.

Federally funded student aid has faced challenges and threats before, including a 1995 House of Representatives proposal to eliminate the TRIO scholarship program that offers aid to low-income first-generation college students. According to Arnold L. Mitchem, President of the Council for Opportunity in Education, the 1995 proposal sparked concern and antagonism.

“We now have the Student Aid Alliance to monitor and protect, and to make sure that student aid advances,” Mitchem said. “We now have strong bi-partisan support for financial aid.”

A. Dallas Martin, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, presented several statistics on the socioeconomic makeup of college students. According to artin, 98 percent of the highest-achieving students from high-economic standings go on to post-secondary education, while only 78 percent of lower-economic students of the same achievement group will enroll in college. Similarly, 77 percent of the lowest-achieving students from wealthy families will go on to college while only 36 percent of low-achieving students from low-income families will pursue higher education. Martin noted that the percentages of low-achieving, wealthy students and high-achieving, poor students who attend college are almost identical.

“Clearly financial resources make a difference,” artin noted. “Students can be not well prepared [for college] but have the financial means to go on.”