JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan.14 -- President Bush proposed Friday increasing the maximum federal grant for low-income college students by $100 a year for five years, a change that he said would make higher education more accessible to thousands of Americans.
Speaking in a packed gymnasium at Florida Community College here, Bush also promised to restructure the government's student loan apparatus to save money that will then be used to help close a long-standing shortfall in the Pell Grant program. The White House offered no details on how those savings would be achieved, although one likely target would be the government subsidies paid to private lenders that handle student loans.
"I'm going to reform the student loan program to make it more -- or ask Congress to reform it -- to make it more effective and efficient, and thereby saving money," Bush said.
The president appeared here in a town-hall-style event that included two community college students who returned to the classroom with the help of federal financial aid. Kim Wilkerson, a mother who has attended Florida Community College part time since 2002, said she would not have been able to afford to return to school without her Pell Grant and student loans. "Without that, it would have been impossible to go," she told Bush.
Bush's college aid proposals, which for the first time would allow Pell Grants to be used by students in the summer if they are on track to graduate from college early, were applauded by a group representing the parents of college students. "For needy families, the expansion of the annual Pell Grant award, both in dollars and in the ability to utilize the money year-round, is welcome news. And for middle-class families, who are facing a college cost squeeze, better access to federal loans, as suggested by the president, will make the current cost of attending school a bit less painful," said James A. Boyle, president of College Parents of America.
Congressional Democrats, however, viewed the proposals with skepticism and accused the president of not matching his past rhetoric with action when it comes to providing financial aid for low-income college students.
"I welcome the president's new proposal but urge America's families with kids applying to college to not count their chickens before they hatch," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. "We've been down this road before. President Bush has walked away from all his promises to raise Pell Grants since his first year in office."
Last month, the Bush administration came under fire from college financial aid advocates after it announced a new formula for calculating eligibility for college financial aid. The move is projected to eliminate Pell Grants for an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 low-income students and force a modest scaling back of other types of state and federal assistance.
Despite that change, Bush noted that more than 1 million more new students receive Pell Grants than when he came into office in 2001. Overall, more than 5.5 million students receive the grants. An estimated 90 percent of the families receiving help through the program earn less than $35,000 a year. The average grant is about $2,400, with the maximum being $4,050 -- a figure that advocates call inadequate because it covers only a fraction of the cost of attending even public four-year colleges. Under Bush's proposal, the maximum Pell Grant would grow to $4,550 over five years.
"Pell Grants are really important. Pell Grants make it possible for people to go to school who otherwise won't go to school," Bush said. "I think that is money really well spent," he added.
Rep. George Miller (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, called the proposed increase too small. "Even President Bush knows that a $500 boost over five years is not enough -- he himself promised, in 2000, that he would raise Pell by more than twice that amount," Miller said. "But $500, if it is real, would be a start in the right direction."
