[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 94 (Friday, June 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8122-S8123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        WHY STUDENT AID MATTERS

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President. We are in the process of making 
basic decisions for the future of our country, and one of them is 
whether we encourage or discourage our young people to go to college.
  And, I just said ``young people;'' I should change that to 
``citizens,'' because a great many who are beyond the traditional 
college age can benefit by higher education, also. I recently visited 
with a woman on welfare, a grandmother, who has enrolled in a community 
college program that she believes may take her off of welfare. I have 
every confidence she is correct.
  To deny people the chance to develop themselves is to limit the 
future of our Nation.
  A New York Times editorial titled ``Why Student Aid Matters'' 
appeared the other day, and I ask to put its editorial wisdom into the 
Congressional Record at this point.
  The editorial follows:

                        Why Student Aid Matters

       Two years ago, Gregory McCall almost because a dropout when 
     he failed to make the state championship basketball team at 
     St. [[Page S8123]] Anthony High School in Jersey City. As he 
     told Neil MacFarquhar of The Times: ``I had no hope of going 
     to college because my family was so poor. I thought I would 
     end up in Jersey City working at Kmart in a minimum-wage 
     job.''
       Instead, with prodding from teachers and counselors, Mr. 
     McCall graduated from St. Anthony this week, receiving an 
     award for outstanding educational improvement and earning a 
     full $20,000 scholarship to Monmouth University in New 
     Jersey.
       He is one of 47 St. Anthony seniors who have been admitted 
     to 138 different colleges and universities, accumulating $1 
     million in financial aid. It is the third year in a row that 
     St. Anthony, whose enrollment of 300 is drawn from 
     impoverished neighborhoods, has had every graduating senior 
     accepted in college.
       But now the aspirations of future classes of such students 
     are in jeopardy. The Congressional assault on student aid 
     programs in general and minority scholarship programs in 
     particular will put college out of reach for many minority 
     and low-income youths.
       Congress threatens to freeze the $6 billion appropriation 
     for Pell grants, which are targeted to low-income students, 
     for the next seven years. The current maximum award, $2,300, 
     has already been reduced to about $1,500 as appropriations 
     have failed to keep pace with increasing numbers of needy 
     students or rising college costs. The freeze is likely to cut 
     grants to poor students while proposed tax breaks for middle- 
     and upper-income families would make it easier for them to 
     pay tuition costs.
       Mr. McCall and his fellow St. Anthony seniors, many of whom 
     are first-generation college students from inner-city 
     minority, ethnic blue-collar and immigrant families, still 
     have hope. But without targeted scholarships and grants, the 
     hopes of many who come after them will be dashed.
     

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