<p>I feel uncomfortable asking this because it is a difficult question that I really don’t know the answer to but:
Looking at where Pell grants are being used, they are primarily NOT being used at 4 year private colleges like Harvard et. al. They are being used at community colleges, 4 year public schools, and proprietary institutions (ie. for profit schools like vocational schools) - Is our goal to increase access and affordability for low income people to 4 year private schools or is it to increase access and affordability to education that will help people get jobs so they can rise beyond the poverty level? Or is it both? If the first, then we are probably not doing a good job. If it is the latter, then it appears we may not be doing all that bad a job - there are a variety of options being underwritten to some extent. It’s really a philosophical question, I suppose. What is the best way to lift a large majority of people out of poverty - is it to send the majority to 4 year private schools or to more job focused training? (I hope no one is offended by this question - just musing here.) In either case, my thought is that our primary focus and spending priority needs to be on k-12 education (and I am not sure we have our spending priorities straight there yet) - again, what good is paying for someone to go to college if they have never achieved basic educational skills in k-12?</p>