[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 44 (Thursday, March 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3741-S3742]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                            MORNING BUSINESS

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                         THE PELL GRANT PROGRAM

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, recently, concern was expressed that the 
Pell Grant Program may be giving college students a free ride, and that 
Federal funds might be better spent by transferring funds to the 
College Work Study Program. Because of this, I thought it might be 
helpful to take a somewhat closer look at the Pell Grant Program, and 
place it in a more proper context regarding student aid in general and 
its relationship to college work study in particular. I thought it 
might also be good to see just how many students today have to work to 
help pay for their college education.
  At the outset, let me make it clear that I support both of these very 
worthy programs. The Pell Grant Program provides students with need the 
opportunity to pursue a college education that might be beyond their 
financial reach. The College Work Study Program often supplements the 
Pell Grant Program and offers deserving students the chance to help 
defray their educational expenses by working. Both programs are 
important, and both programs are essential.
  I am concerned, however, that with respect to the Pell Grant Program, 
the impression in the public's mind might be that these students do not 
have to work and that their college education is being fully financed 
by their Pell grant. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
  As my colleagues know, the Pell grant award is need-based, which 
means it goes only to students who demonstrate financial need. Over 75 
percent of all students who receive Pell grants come from families with 
incomes of less than $15,000 a year, which means that the program is 
targeted to those students who have the greatest financial need.
  In addition, it is very important that one realize that the maximum 
Pell grant can be no higher than $2,340, the current maximum, or 60 
percent of the cost of attendance, whichever is less. Thus, in no 
situation does the Pell grant pay for a student's entire education. At 
best, it covers only 60 percent of the cost of attendance, and that in 
the case of those students who demonstrate the very greatest need.
  Increasingly, more and more students find they must work in order to 
obtain the additional funds necessary to pay for a college education. A 
recent Washington Post article indicated that the proportion of all 
fulltime college students between the ages of 16 and 24 who worked to 
help pay for their education had increased from 35 percent in 1972 to 
51 percent in 1993. And, fulltime students now work an average of 25 
hours a week.
  The figures for Pell grant recipients are even more dramatic. Of 
those who responded to a recent survey by the U.S. Department of 
Education, more than 75 percent of all Pell grant recipients worked and 
60 percent worked while they were in school. Numerically, this means 
that almost 2.8 million Pell grant recipients work, and over 2.2 
million must work and go to college at the same time.
  I am equally concerned that there may simply not be enough hours in a 
day for needy and deserving students to pay for their entire education 
by working. One goes to college to learn. If that is to be done and 
done well, students must have sufficient time to study. While work may 
be both necessary and laudable, it should not rob students of the time 
they need to fulfill the academic responsibilities that led them to 
seek a college education in the first place.
  Further, it is very doubtful that there are enough jobs in and around 
campus to meet the demand that would be created if the Pell Grant 
Program were handed over to college work study. When we reauthorized 
the Higher Education Act in 1992, we considered an expansion of the 
Work Study Program, but found that many colleges were literally 
stretched to the limits in terms of finding employment for their 
students. Thus, as worthwhile and important as the College Work Study 
Program is, it simply cannot meet the overwhelming needs of students.
  One of the unique features of the Pell Grant Program is that it is 
targeted to the student and not the institution. If students 
demonstrate need, Pell grant funds are available to help them attend a 
college of their choice. Transferring that approach to the campus-based 
Work Study Program would change the very nature of the Pell Grant 
Program. 
[[Page S3742]] Access and choice are twin features of this important 
program, and I am of the mind that we should not alter that approach.
  The Pell Grant Program has helped literally millions of students 
achieve a college education that otherwise would have been beyond their 
reach. This year more than 3.7 million students received Pell grants, 
and more than 54 million grants have been made since the program began 
in 1973-74 school year. It is a program that has outstripped the widely 
popular and important GI bill on which it was modeled.
  Mr. President, today we are faced with the fact that more students 
and families are having to go deeply into debt to pay for a college 
education. The number of students and families who must borrow and the 
amount of money they are borrowing are reaching gigantic proportions. A 
decade ago the anticipated new loan volume in the Guaranteed Student 
Loan Program was $7.9 billion with just under 3.4 million borrowers. 
This year the anticipated loan volume is $25.8 billion and almost 6.6 
million borrowers. The number of borrowers has less than doubled, but 
the amount borrowed has more than tripled.
  Instead of focusing concern on either the Pell Grant Program or the 
College Work Study Program, we should be examining with care the long-
term effects of student indebtedness. Instead of a debate that would 
have us choose between grants or work study, we should be debating how 
to increase both of those programs in order to relieve students and 
families of the terrible debt burden they are incurring through student 
loans.
  Mr. President, in a Congress where the size of the national debt is 
rightfully a major focus and where the need for a better balance 
between income and expenditures is absolutely necessary,
 we should not lose sight of the fact that this applies not only to 
Federal spending but also to family spending and the deficit they face 
in trying to pay for a college education.

  In a Congress where budget cutting is a major theme, it may not be 
popular to suggest that the right and prudent course to follow in 
student aid is to increase funding in both the Pell grant and the 
College Work Study program. Yet, that is, to my mind, the course we 
should be following if, in fact, we are really, truly concerned about 
the debt American students and families are incurring as they invest 
not only in education but in their own and their Nation's future 
strength and well-being.
  What Disraeli said of England over a century ago is surely just as 
true for America today: ``Upon the education of our children depends 
the future of the nation.''

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