Mom0f3

This morning's Washington Post reports Republican discord over the proposed stimulus package, believing it is too expensive and lacks enough "fast acting tax relief." Arlen Specter (R-PA) "has said he opposes the proposed increase in funding for Pell Grants for college students because it would do little to spur short term economic growth." You can read the article at:washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines


Those of us who frequent these boards (and have kids in college!) know the devastating effect the economy is having on colleges, with both professional and support staff being laid off. Some kids are needing to leave college mid-year due to inability to pay tuition, and many others won't be able to attend at all. If you want to write to your Representatives or Senators (or Senator Specter) to make your opinions known, the website below (from Roll Call) allows you to quickly find the appropriate Congressperson and to generate an email. I've never been politically active before this election, but now I believe that I (and my fellow citizens) can make a difference, if we only take the time and make an effort.
Congress.org - Elected Officials

bulletandpima

I actually agree with Specter, and our DS is on scholarship, and loans, we did not qualify for the pell. I went on a Pell for my 1st yr, but then they reduced it and I did not get it (back in the 80's)

I understand your point, but we can't afford to add everything to get the economy going. We need to make hard decisions, we can't just put things in to make people happy. Between Tarp and the stimulus package it will be over 1.5 TRILLION dollars and who knows if it will work, or by printing more money and going in debt we will hurt ourselves even more.

IMHO it is not the congress we should be contacting, but the actual University. Many of them have extreme endowments. Harvard's endowment is so large, that they could pay for every student their entire collegiate life, including, law and MBA without ever touching the principle. Does Harvard do this? No. Check out your child's endowment, and then question yourself, should the govt give more money or should the University lower their tuition rate. If a child goes to a state univ from OOS, which number is the one that the university needs to survive...the IS cost or the OOS cost? I don't think the OOS kid gets any better of an education for 2x the cost, nor do I think that IS gets a lower quality education. I know it is a perk for being a resident, but the point is, if we want college to be affordable the university has to be also responsible for the cost

FYI...UVA's endowment is 266K for every student they have. UMich is 177K, UNCCH is 55K. In all of those cases every IS could go for free. In the 1st 2 every student IS or OOS could go for free, with money left to spare.
Notre Dame's endowment is over 4 Billion, BC is over 1.4 Billion. Lehigh is close to 1 Billion, Georgetown is also near 1 Billion, Bucknell is 500 million. For ND if they only have a 1% return , that would be 40 million they would have to spend without touching the principle, BC that is 14 million. If you have 10K students at the cost of 35K a yr, that would be a great burden to reduce the cost by much more than the amt Pell gives

Beldar

I would be curious to know the actual percentage of college students nationwide that are eligible for the Pell Grant and how many kids would ultimately be effected.

Secondly, how does increasing the available grant money (in this case the federal government) stimulate the nation's economy (either short or long term)?

Does providing grants (which don't have to be repaid) provide any jobs (other than those people working in a government office to process the paperwork) in the private sector?

I am sure the argument will be made that without those grants the student won't get the necessary education to enter the job market years from now. However, the grants are not being taken away nor reduced in amount. The idea to simply increase them at this time is not considered feasible.

Based upon Washington political accounting methods, this would be considered a "cut".

bulletandpima

In 2007, 5.4 million students received some funding, grants are paid to families that typically make less than 55K. The amt ranges from 450 to 4700. The colleges that are going to feel the pinch the most is community colleges. I am not positive, but I know somebody that is not a legal citizen and is receiving the Pell grant. This is because they are attending an American university.

mini

"Harvard's endowment is so large, that they could pay for every student their entire collegiate life, including, law and MBA without ever touching the principle."

Your choice of colleges is odd. You used as illustrations colleges such as Harvard, UVA, UMichigan, Notre Dame, Lehigh, and Bucknell which have, within their respective classes, among the lowest percentages of Pell Grant students.

"Secondly, how does increasing the available grant money (in this case the federal government) stimulate the nation's economy (either short or long term)?"

Frees up money for spending on "real things" (rather than bank bottom-lines); low-income individuals spend virtually all available income virtually immediately, hence stimulating the economy.

xiggi

Unfortunately, is history is a good predictor, the increase of the Pell grant will be immediately offset by an increase in tuition and then some.

Any increase in Pell funds should be restricted to students who attend colleges that are agreeing to FREEZE costs increases and are accepting to match the Pell funds with ADDITIONAL scholarship funds.

The reason of the imbalance between available funds and costs has not been a slowly increasing Pell funds but the manner --that often borders the obscene-- in which colleges have raised costs to cover their inability to rein in demands from interested parties.

In this period of crisis, everyone needs to contribute a bit of belt-tightening and that is something that colleges do not seem to understand ... yet. Reading how the richest schools that have made billions of profits in the past decade are supposedly chocked by the recent erosion of their portfolio is simply off-putting. Most of the Harvard and Yale are STILL much, much richer than they were a mere decade ago. Going from 10 billion to 20 billion and then losing 4 or 5 of them still leaves with a substantial increase.

They should only increase the Pell if it does lower the costs of the students and their family. A better proposal should be to issue a MODEST education stimulus check directly to the STUDENT and prohibit FAFSA and the schools to consider it a resource. Such a check of 500 dollars would probably mean a lot more than a 2000 Pell increase.

ProudDadof2

In this economy most families need help with college tuition... not just low-income families. Since Wall Street and our government have left many middle to upper-middle income families with severely depleted college savings funds, maybe there should be some focus on "spreading the wealth" to all who have been hurt by this financial crisis.

cartera45

I just saw John Boehner talking about how millions of dollars spent on condoms won't stimulate the economy so it sounds like some real substantive debate is going on.

interesteddad

This isn't a stimulus package. It's a stampede of pork. Democratic Party interest groups are standing from sea to shining sea waiting for the heavens to open and dump funding into their outstretched hands.

LongPrime

Not exactly happy with government spending. However, DS could be up for a job that will be dependent of government spending on Veteran's Medical Research (something that W did not place a great deal of thought). And I'd rather see young people in school rather on the streets looking for nonexistent jobs.

bluebayou

I-dad:

Ted Stevens got out a couple of months to early. This bill is a 1,000 bridges to nowhere.

razorsharp

Pell grants won't stimulate the economy and get us out of a recession. They are just more pork borrowed from future generations who do not have a vote in the matter. It's just more stupid Democrats spending and spending and using the excuse of the economy as cover.

mini

How DARE they give money to poor people to go to school when they could have been giving it to bankers? How dare they! What an outrage!

Poor people are such pigs, and they smell. And they never spend any money, but stick in their mattresses, which are plump and fat, and they sleep like kings!

cptofthehouse

Mini is bringing up an excellent point that is being missed here. The Pell grant is not something that schools like HPY and others that are able to discount their costs and even cover them with their endowments. They wouldn't miss the Pell grants one bit if they were discontinued and neither would the vast majority of kids who go to these schools.

The Pell grants become essential to those students who are going to schools that do not have endowments or scholarships to speak of. We are not talking about the straight A student with 2200+ on the SAT. The student who most need the money are usually living with parents, going part time and to a local college. Maybe a community college or state school. THe Pell is crucial funding for these students.

Here in NY, we are very fortunate that the tuition is such that those who qualify for the PELL and state funds can make through college with those monies.

I agree fully that the Pell grant is not something that most of us on CC find very useful and for them to up the funding so that another thousand is thrown in per student, it is barely going to be a drop in the bucket even if the student qualifies for it. But it can make the difference for those kids who are depending on it.

interesteddad

Actually, I'm read that many community colleges don't accept Pell Grants. Too much red tape. They prefer to run a "cash n' carry" business.