WASHINGTON, D.C. – To reduce income inequality and help the United States regain its former status as the most college-educated nation in the world, the federal government needs to develop a long-term strategy to support one of its primary means of helping the poor pay for higher education, said college access experts Wednesday at a Washington forum.
Instead, support for the federal Pell Grant program, which is decided on a year-to-year basis, remains mired in politics and stuck on shaky ground, throwing into question the degree of federal financial assistance that low-income students and families can count on—or not—for the foreseeable future.
Such analysis became evident at the Education Sector organization’s panel discussion titled “Is the Pell Grant Program Sustainable?”
Most of the panelists took aim at the question asked within the program title itself, arguing that the real question ought to be how to sustain the Pell Grant program, not whether it is sustainable.
“We really must focus on whether or not we’re willing and capable of sustaining the program,” said Jose Cruz, vice president for higher education policy and practice at Education Trust, a D.C.-based education policy organization that focuses on closing the achievement gap.
The Pell Grant program currently relies on nearly $40 billion annually and serves some 9 million students, the vast majority of them with family incomes of $30,000 or less, according to Education Sector.
Cruz said the program must be sustained because income inequality is at an all-time high, social mobility is at an all-time low, and low-income students are going to college at rates less than they were in the early 1970s, putting today’s young people on a path that will make them the first generation of Americans to be less educated than their parents.
