Senators urged at hearing to raise Pell grant limit

Students from the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, and Cheyney University and a parent of five from Fox Chase yesterday told U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) how critical federally funded Pell Grants were to them as they struggled to pay for college.

During a Senate committee hearing on college affordability at Temple University, they urged Casey to raise the current $5,350 maximum grant amount available to low-income students.

"I believe it is imperative to raise the Pell grant levels to allow students to remain in college and to match the rising costs of education," said Adalena Baxter, 21, a senior at Cheyney.

The psychology major from Bethlehem said she sometimes had to work more than 40 hours a week on two jobs to help cover the rising costs of tuition and books.

"It would only seem logical that Pell grants would increase to accommodate these rising costs," Baxter said.

And three experts on higher education said that at a time when students and their families were taking on more and more loans to cover college expenses, expanding grant opportunities was especially critical for low-income students and their families.

"Research consistently shows that need-based grants - like Pell grants - promote college enrollment for students from low-income families," said Laura W. Perna an associate professor in Penn's Graduate School of Education."

Two-thirds of students who received Pell Grants in 2007-08 came from families who earned less than $30,000, she said.

The Pell Grants, though, Perna said, have not kept pace with college costs. She cited recent studies that found that the maximum grant covered only 32 percent of the average cost of tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities nationwide in 2007-08, down from 50 percent a decade earlier.

Casey, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he held yesterday's field hearing to gather information in preparation for the Senate's taking up financial-aid legislation that would increase the maximum amount for Pell Grants.

The House passed a bill last month that would increase the annual amount to $6,900 during the next decade and would end subsidies for private lenders that provide college loans.

Casey said the financial-aid bill would be before his committee soon and expected the Senate version might differ from the House's bill.

"I think there will be some differences," he said. "We're not sure yet of the extent of those differences."

He said, however, there's a strong consensus about the need to expand college access, to increase the amount of Pell Grants and to ensure more families are able to take advantage of them.

"We have to get this right," he said.

The senator said he was hopeful the Senate would act by year's end.