Pell Grant eligibility to decrease, report finds
By Adrienne Lynett
May 3, 2005 9:00 p.m.
The last thing many students need as the cost of attending
college continues to increase is a reduction in their financial
aid.
But a report issued by the Government Accountability Office, an
independent, nonpartisan agency that studies federal expenditures,
found that many students will face just that.
The report revealed that 81,000 U.S. college students will lose
their eligibility to receive aid in the form of Pell Grants for the
2005-2006 academic year.
Of those students retaining their eligibility, 36 percent will
see a decrease in the amount of their award, the report found.
The GAO’s report was commissioned to examine the effects
of changes made in December 2004 by the Department of Education to
the formula used to determine a student’s eligibility for
aid. The new formula decreases the amount of taxes deducted from
the income of students and their families because it uses a more
recent set of state and federal tax data.
The Department of Education made the change because it claimed
the tax tables needed to be updated in order to increase
efficiency. The change was backed in Congress by Chairman of the
Committee on Education and the Workforce Rep. John Boehner,
R”“Ohio.
The report found that in California ““ one of the states
that was hit least hard by the formula change ““ 21 percent of
students receiving aid will see their grant amount decrease, as
compared with 36 percent nationwide. Also, the average dollar
decrease for students whose aid is diminished will be $86 in
California and $131 nationwide.
“It’s been clear all along that the Department of
Education’s decision would result in change,” said
Alexa Marerro, a spokeswoman for the Committee on Education and the
Workforce. Marrero said that using the updated data will ensure
that funding is allocated to students who most need it.
“The lowest-income students were not impacted by this
(change) at all,” Marrero said.
But opponents of the change to the formula accuse the Department
of Education of cheating families out of financial aid.
“Frankly, it’s an accounting gimmick,” said
Tom Kiley, a spokesman for Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Miller,
senior Democrat on the Committee for Education and the Workforce,
cosponsored legislation that was introduced in January to reverse
the changes made to the formula.
“(The change is) taking college aid away from families at
a time when they desperately need it,” Kiley said.
He said Washington needs to do more to help students and their
families pay for college.
“There has to be a better way to figure out who qualifies
and how much they qualify for,” he said.
Marrero said to fault the new formula for the loss of a
student’s eligibility for aid is an oversimplification.
“To imply that this table that had not been updated for 17
years is the sole factor is inaccurate,” she said, adding
that the FAFSA “is a complex formula.”
The complexity of the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal
Student Aid) has become apparent to the proponents of the change to
the formula as well as to its opponents. Miller, together with
Representatives Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.,
proposed legislation in March intended to streamline the process of
applying for financial aid, called the College Aid Made EZ Act.
The legislation proposes to make the process of applying for aid
simpler, especially for the neediest students ““ students who
would likely qualify for Pell Grants.
“Removing barriers to college and graduate school means
making tuition more affordable, but it also means simplifying the
student aid application process,” Emanuel said.
