WASHINGTON — When Congress moves to reauthorize the Higher Education Act—something it should have done years ago—it should include bigger Pell Grants that reflect today’s cost of college, several panelists testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
“First and foremost, you can protect and expand your investment in Pell Grants,” Kati Haycock, CEO at The Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said Wednesday in advising Democratic lawmakers as to how they could help students—particularly students of color—reduce the amount of debt they incur to obtain a bachelor’s degree.
Whereas the Pell Grant once covered about three-quarters of the cost of attendance at a four-year college, tuition increases have “eroded the purchasing power of Pell” to the point where it now only covers about one-third of tuition and fees at public universities, Haycock said.
“This erosion in purchasing power makes college more costly for the nearly nine million students who receive Pell each year, including nearly half of all Hispanic undergraduate students and more than 60 percent of African–American students,” she said.
Haycock was one of several panelists who testified Wednesday at a nearly two-hour forum on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that was led by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).
The forum, which was hosted by Democrats who serve on the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, comes at a time when student debt continues to soar to the point where one panelist said it is impeding college graduates from making major life decisions, such as whether to get married or buy a home.
Maggie Thompson, executive director of Generation Progress—the “youth engagement” arm of the left-leaning Center for American Progress—noted that America’s college graduates have incurred a collective $1.3 trillion in student debt nationwide and that the average level of debt for a graduate with a bachelor’s degree is close to $30,000.
