Pell Grants: Celebrating 40 Years
As Prepared for Delivery
Mr./Madame President – I rise today to commemorate an important milestone in American education. Forty years ago this week, President Nixon signed into law the Education Amendments of 1972, including a provision establishing for the first time the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, which came to be called the Pell Grant, for its sponsor, Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. Over the next four decades Pell Grants would help turn the dream of a college education into a reality for millions of Americans.
Today, more than ever, a college diploma is important to a young person’s success. The unemployment rate for those 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree is less than four percent, as opposed to over eight percent for those with only a high school diploma. Higher education provides the skills and credentials that many employers require in today’s economy.
In the decades following World War II, government grants made college, and occupational mobility, a reality for more Americans than ever before. Claiborne Pell, a veteran of that War, saw how the G.I. Bill enabled millions of his fellow veterans to better themselves through education. He recognized that many of his Coast Guard shipmates had just as much talent as his Princeton classmates, but not the privilege or resources to go to college. And given the opportunity, this Greatest Generation would not only provide a better life for their families, but contribute mightily to the growth of this nation.
Claiborne Pell resolved then that all Americans should have that opportunity. His vision would become a reality for millions through the Pell Grant.
In 1976, the first year that Pell Grants were fully funded, a full Pell Grant paid 72 percent of the cost of attendance at a typical four-year public college. Today, a full Pell Grant covers just 32 percent of those costs. Still, for many, this vital assistance can often mean the difference between being able to attend college or not.
As grant aid has fallen and tuitions have soared, families have borrowed to make up the difference. The total amount of student loan debt carried Americans has recently surpassed $1 trillion—more than Americans owe on our credit cards!
I’ve talked to students around my state and read many heartfelt letters. It is clear that Pell Grants serve as a gateway to the opportunities available with a college degree—a gate that would be shut if not for Pell Grants.
I received a letter from Phil in Wakefield, RI, the oldest of five children. Last year, Phil graduated from Cornell. Phil worked his way through college, including summers. His parents chipped in when they could. (Phil’s father is still paying off his student loans!) And Phil was lucky enough to earn private scholarships and received grants from his school. “But there’s no way my education would have been possible without Pell Grants,” he wrote. “We just wouldn't have been able to afford it.”
I also heard from Anthony, who has been working as a waiter in Providence. Thanks to the Pell Grant, he and his wife, Jen, have been able to go back to school at the University of Rhode Island for degrees in biotechnology. They say their education will enable them to build a better future together in Rhode Island’s rapidly expanding biotech sector.
Leann is a single mother of two from Pawtucket, already carrying student loan debt although she hadn’t been able to finish her undergraduate program. Last year, Leann enrolled in the School of Continuing Education at Roger Williams University and when she graduates with a bachelor’s degree next year she plans on opening her own small business. “None of this would be happening,” she wrote, “if I were not receiving a Pell Grant.”
The simple fact is this: Pell Grants help millions of people achieve the dream of college and improve their prospects for employment. It’s a wise investment in the future of our country.
Congress has in recent years increased the buying power of Pell Grants, increasing the maximum grant from $4,050 in academic year 2006-2007 to $5,550 in 2012-2013. We also increased the minimum family income that automatically qualifies a student for the maximum Pell grant, a change that better reflects today’s economic realities.
But sadly, we are seeing a renewed assault on Pell Grants.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal marked the 40th anniversary of Pell Grants this week by printing claims about the program that simply, Mr./Madame President, do not withstand scrutiny.
The Journal says that the Pell program is rife with abuse, with students engaging in “creative accounting” to qualify by feigning financial independence. The most common way you get deemed independent is by being 24 years of age or older. Hard to imagine doing much creative accounting with your date of birth. The other major proofs of independence are being married and having children. Creative accounting….
The Wall Street Journal implies that better-off students can win larger grants by attending more expensive institutions. What they don’t tell you is that the cost of tuition cannot increase the maximum size of a grant. The maximum Pell Grant is $5,550, regardless of the school you attend. And as we all recognize, $5,550 is far from sufficient to cover the cost of most institutions of higher education.
But perhaps the most misleading claim from the Journal is to pick out the period when costs rose significantly between 2008 and 2010, due largely to the enactment of a funding expansion that has since been repealed and the fact that more eligible students applied for assistance as the economy worsened in those years. What they left out is that the Congressional Budget Office projects almost no average annual growth in program costs over the next 10 years.
The Republican budget in the House of Representatives slashes funding and eligibility for Pell Grants and eliminates all mandatory funding for the program over the next ten years.
I understand the need to find savings in the federal budget, and to make difficult choices, but of all the bad choices we could make, failing to invest in Pell Grants is among the worst. It is shameful that federal financial aid has not kept pace with the rising cost of college. And it is misguided to roll back financial aid for a generation of young Americans preparing to compete in a global economy. We need a highly trained workforce, and Pell Grants are often the keystone in the arch that students must build to afford college—as Phil and Anthony and Jen and Leann showed.
Mr./Madame President, Rhode Island is a small state, but over the years we have had some towering and remarkable Senators. Claiborne Pell was one. Claiborne Pell believed, as he once told the Providence Journal, “that government -- and the federal government in particular -- can, should and does make a positive impact on the lives of most Americans.”
The Pell grant’s positive impact is that people who can’t afford college have the chance to go to college, and it lifts a bit that burden of debt. That’s something we want not just for the sake of the next generation, but for the sake of the country.
Thank you. I yield the Floor.