Protect Opportunity. Save Pell Grants.
As students pack their bags and pick their college courses for the fall semester, a sense of uncertainty hangs in the air. Can students actually afford this?
In hacking away at the budget, Washington is debating drastic cuts to the Pell Grant program, which helps the nation’s lowest income students pay for college. Nearly 10 million students rely on Pell to help them finance their post-secondary education, and the program helps to eliminate ever-present inequalities in higher education and the economy. We cannot pretend that the cost of college is not prohibitive for many, especially minority students. Almost half of African-American students and 40% of Hispanic students rely on Pell Grants to help them finance their education. Still, low-income and minority students are the least likely to have a college degree. By the age of 24, children of the wealthy are 10 times more likely to have a college degree than children of the poor.
College tuition and fees have grown at more than four times the rate of inflation, and the lowest income students continue to bear the heaviest burden. The typical low-income college student must finance college costs
