The Pell Grant program, once a powerful tool for promoting low-income access in higher education, has lost its luster.
That’s the conclusion of a new report -- "Beyond Pell: A Next-Generation Design for Federal Financial Aid" -- that was published Thursday by the Education Trust, New America Foundation, and Young Invincibles.
It argues that the federal government needs to be bolder in how it gets low-income students to enroll in postsecondary education, given the Pell Grant’s declining purchasing power and tuition hikes at public universities. In 1980, the maximum Pell award covered more than three-quarters of what it cost students to attend a four-year public university in the student's home state; last year it covered 31 percent of the cost of attendance under the same circumstances. Similarly, over the same time period, a Pell Grant went from covering nearly all of the costs students face at community colleges to covering less than half.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/03/pell-grant-loses-access-potency-new-paper-calls-bolder-federal-college-affordability