Editorial: Keep eyes on student aid controversy

It’s federal budget proposal time, and consequently, it’s grit-your-teeth time for… It’s federal budget proposal time, and consequently, it’s grit-your-teeth time for cash-strapped college students.

OK maybe it’s not that bad. But for many college students, the rumblings over federal student aid programs in seemingly far-away Capitol Hill could soon become quite personal, like, not-being-able-to-pay-tuition personal. So stay on top of it. It’s your money and your education (which, because it affects employment opportunities, is also your future money).

In the crosshairs this time is the Pell Grant, a need-based grant that has been sponsored by the Department of Education since 1965. The Pell Grant helps millions of students from low-income families pay for undergraduate education. With a surge in Pell applications over the last three years — mostly recession-induced — the taxpayer-supported program is on track to fall $20 billion in the red by 2012, hence the stir among policymakers.

Last Friday, House Republicans released a FY 2011 budget proposal — remember, the U.S. government is running on a last-minute continuation of the 2010 budget that expires in March — that seeks to cut the per-year maximum for Pell Grants by 15 percent, or from $5,550 to $4,731. Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the FinAid.org financial aid website, wrote that by intrinsic mechanisms, this reduction could strip aid eligibility from up to 1.7 million low-income students. This means that almost one-fifth of current loan recipients would be cut from the program, with the rest having to brunt more of their college costs.

Although it might be true that some young people choose to attend college for the wrong reasons — refer to Tuesday’s staff editorial on career-tracking — pushing policy that trims college attendance on the basis of demographics clearly misses the point. In fact, making college education harder to finance is the last thing the government should be doing in an age when tuition ascends its exponential staircase, and foreign countries’ degrees-per-capita rates do laps around those of the United States.

Programs that make undergraduate learning less a function of your parents’ savings account — programs like the Pell Grant — are crucial to the future.

Judging from his proposed FY 2012 budget, President Barack Obama seems to understand this. And his statement Monday that “education is an investment that we need to win the future” is more than just lip service with a poorly developed tagline. The president’s budget proposal, released Monday, extends the Pell Grant’s $5,550 maximum award, though making compensatory cuts to other programs. For example, under the Obama proposal, graduate students would have to pay interest on their loans during the semester, which the government currently subsidizes. In addition, the pilot program that allows award-qualifying applicants two Pell Grants in a single year would end.

Though these measures might be painful for some, if Obama’s proposed cuts buttress the larger Pell Grant program, they might be justified. But with millions of American students receiving financial aid (about 2,000 Pitt students, according to the College Board), that decision shouldn’t be simply left in the hands of Obama or Speaker of the House John Boehner. It’s students who will be the direct beneficiaries (or victims) of what’s to come. So speak up and stay informed.