UCLA should offer own summer grant similar to summer Pell Grant
By Roy Hu
May 25, 2011 11:51 p.m.
After this summer, lower-income students will no longer be able to take out a second Pell Grant to help pay for summer school.
Though the Pell Grant is a federal issue, UCLA still needs to actively take measures to ensure that our lower-income students still have the financial means and opportunity to attend summer sessions.
Despite cuts to the Pell Grant, UCLA is still committed to the Blue and Gold opportunity plan, which will cover the tuition of families that make less than $80,000 in 2012, said Lawrence Persky, counseling unit supervisor at the Financial Aid Office.
But UCLA should develop and fund its own program similar to the federal summer grant. The idea of the summer Pell Grant was created to help accelerate the graduation process.
As tuition continues to rise, the most cost-effective plan for students from lower-income families is to graduate as soon as possible.
Pell Grants are especially relevant to UCLA. In 2009, 33 percent of undergraduates at UCLA received the Pell Grant ““ the highest among elite schools in the nation.
One of the major arguments that the Department of Education presented for cutting the summer Pell was that it didn’t believe the summer Pell raised graduation rates.
I think that while the concern is valid, the argument itself is absurd.
The year-round Pell Grant program has only been around for two years ““ it’s impossible to measure its effects on graduation rates.
This cut seems to come at the worst possible time. Because UCLA is a public institution, it has to deal with the unreliability and volatility of state funding.
The budget for the 2011-2012 academic year is equal to that in 1998-1999, when the UC system served 73,000 fewer students.
And under the looming threat of more cuts to education, if the UC cannot obtain current levels of funding, it may seek a 32 percent mid-year tuition increase for the 2011-2012 academic year. Lower-income students are the clearest victims here.
Short of a second gold rush, this is the new reality. Graduating early, or even just on time, is more important than ever.
To be sure, UCLA already does a good job of keeping up strong graduation rates. Since 1985, student here have been taking less time to graduate, defying a 30-year national trend of taking longer. For the class of 2005, 70.4 percent of students were able to graduate in either three or four years.
To speed up the graduation process, UCLA can offer a summer grant that ties money to academic progress.
Currently, to qualify for the federal summer Pell at UCLA, students must earn more than 36 units during the year, maintain “satisfactory academic progress” and take six units during the summer.
But to identify and select students who are serious about accelerating, I would set stricter requirements for the UCLA summer grant. Students would need to take more than the 36 units a year, which barely makes them a full-time student, and definitely more than six units over the summer.
A portion of the funding for my proposal may, if necessary, even directly come from existing financial aid.
By taking the cut in financial aid and attending summer school, students are actually losing money. This seems at first a little absurd, or self-defeating.
But consider how tuition for the UC schools has increased nine times since the 2000-2001 school year. UC financial experts predict the tuition will rise 8 to 20 percent each year over the next four years.
How effective would the current Pell Grant maximum of $5,500 be if the threat of a 32 percent mid-year increase spikes tuition from $11,100 to about $14,800? Not very.
As tuition continues to skyrocket, the Pell Grant becomes less effective over time, even if its level stays the same.
It doesn’t feel right asking students from lower-income families to take more classes and receive less aid. But I think it’s cost-effective and should be done.
Still, good news is out there. California needs a million more graduates by 2025. Jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree are expected to grow by 17 percent by 2018.
Students from all economic backgrounds should be out there.
Time is money, they say, but there’s no reason why we should spend it all staying in school longer than we can afford to.
