NYT: On the Value of Pell Grants

[marite]

<p>A great valentine to Pell Grants:</p>

<p>

ON Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, Caroline Kennedy introduced a tribute to her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, by pointing out, “If your child is getting an early boost in life through Head Start or attending a better school or can go to college because a Pell Grant has made it more affordable, Teddy is your senator, too.”</p>

<p>To my surprise, I started to cry. Started to cry like I was watching the last 10 minutes of “Brokeback Mountain” instead of C-SPAN. This was whimpering brought on by simple, spontaneous gratitude.</p>

<p>I paid my way through Montana State University with student loans, a minimum-wage job making sandwiches at a joint called the Pickle Barrel, and — here come the waterworks — Pell Grants. Thanks to Pell Grants, I had to work only 30 hours a week up to my elbows in ham instead of 40.</p>

<p>Ten extra hours a week might sound negligible, but do you know what a determined, junior-Hillary type of hick with a full course load and onion-scented hands can do with the gift of 10 whole hours per week? Not flunk geology, that’s what. Take German every day at 8 a.m. — for fun! Wander into the office of the school paper on a whim and find a calling. I’m convinced that those 10 extra hours a week are the reason I graduated magna cum laude, which I think is Latin for “worst girlfriend in town.”</p>

<p>Twenty years after my first financial aid package came through, I have paid off my college and graduate school loans and I have paid back the federal government in income taxes what it doled out to me in Pell Grants so many, many, many, many times over it’s a wonder I’m not a Republican.</p>

<p>But I would like to point out that my perfectly ordinary education, received in public schools and a land grant university, is not merely the foundation on which I make a living. My education made my life. In a sometimes ugly world, my schooling opened a trap door to a bottomless pit of beauty — to Walt Whitman and Louis Armstrong and Frank Lloyd Wright, to the old movies and old masters that have been my constant companions in my unalienable pursuit of happiness.</p>

<p>I’m a New Yorker now. Every now and then when I have time to kill in Midtown, I duck into the Museum of Modern Art to stare at Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” I love looking at the picture, but I also love looking back on when and where and how I first saw it — on a slide in a first-year art history course in which some of my fellow students were ranchers’ sons who wore actual cowboy hats to class. It was a course I paid for, in part, with a Pell Grant, a program always and as ever championed by “my senator,” Ted Kennedy, a program so dear to Barack Obama’s heart that increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grants for needy students was the first bill he introduced upon arrival in the United States Senate.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31vowell.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31vowell.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[sueinphilly]

<p>I just read that before you posted. I thought she was being thankful and a bit sarcastic when she tells how the Pell grant meant she only had to work 30 vs 40 hours a week.</p>

[marite]

<p>I was astounded that she had to work 40 hours a week before Pell and that the Pell grant was only worth 10 hours. I do think that having the 10 hours freed up made a lot of difference.
My S, who was not on finaid, worked 15-20 hours a week in his sophomore year.</p>

<p>Nowadays, I would assume that Pell grantees would receive additional finaid. Anyone knows how many hours they typically work?</p>

[overseas]

<p>I survived and graduated with my pell grants. I paid off all my loans within a year of starting full time work. I also worked in community literacy programs on weekends afterwards to pay “society” back. Bless them!</p>

[overseas]

<p>My son has grants but he also has a wonderful larger scholarship that makes it possible for him not to work. Fortunately or unfortunately he has worked because he wanted to for 20 hours plus a week and he has had full time jobs every summer. He has so much job experience now. It is wonderful. And he has finally figured out how to get straight As. Bless the government and private aid. He graduates in 9 months.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>sue, upon quick read, I also thought it was sarcastic, but on closer read, it’s clearly not. The 10 hours enabled a passing grade in geology & a magna cum laude designation on the diploma. :)</p>

<p>Pell Grantees often do get other scholarships and also often take Work-Study jobs as part of a financial package. Work-study hours are limited per academic year, and usually involve 10-15 hrs per week.</p>

[mini]

<p>At prestige private so-called “need-blind” (doesn’t exist) colleges today, Pell Grants are simply a way for colleges to avoid using endowment funds toward tuition. But at community colleges, they are critical!</p>

[mini]

<p>At prestige private so-called “need-blind” (doesn’t exist) colleges today, Pell Grants are simply a way for colleges to avoid using endowment funds toward tuition. But at community colleges, they are critical!</p>