Obama budget plan increases Pell Grant funding
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Michigan would receive $1.2 billion in new funding for Pell Grants helping more than 317,600 Michigan students afford college, as part of President Barack Obama proposed budget revealed Monday.
Obama proposed a $17 billion increase to federal Pell Grants in his $3.8 trillion budget plan.
The proposal, included in Obama’s 2011 fiscal year budget, also would raise the maximum Pell Grant award from $5,350 to $5,710, according to a statement from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. During the 2007-08 school year, 7,004 MSU students received Pell Grants.
Zack Pohl, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, said these investments could stimulate Michigan’s economy.
“(Congressman Schauer) plans to carefully review the details of the president’s 2011 budget throughout the coming days, but in principle, he supports efforts to make higher education more affordable for middle-class families by boosting funding for Pell Grants,” he said.
U.S. lawmakers now will review Obama’s fiscal year 2011 spending suggestions and use them as a blueprint as they develop their own budget.
Some lawmakers still are concerned Obama’s proposal would cost too much.
“With the highest unemployment in America, now is not the time to burden Michigan’s middle class with the largest levels of borrowing, spending and tax increases in our nation’s history,” U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, said in an e-mail.
Regardless of the price tag, nursing sophomore Tricia Hemingway said the program would be beneficial.
“In the long run, it will help us out more,” she said. “Despite cost, it would make it easier for students.”
On average, between five and six million students nationwide receive Pell Grants each year, said Angela Peoples, legislative director for the United States Student Association, or USSA. USSA is a nonpartisan organization that lobbies Congress for student-related issues such as tuition.
“Pell Grants are the cornerstone of our student lending system,” she said. “It allows more and more students to go to college each year that wouldn’t be going (otherwise).”
The increase would allow an additional one million students nationwide to receive the funding, Peoples said. Obama’s budget proposal also included his plan to cut student loan payments to 10 percent of a borrower’s income after graduation and forgive student loan debt after 20 years. Currently graduates make a monthly payment of 15 percent of their income and loans are forgiven after 25 years.
Rogers said the budget calls for a record $1.6 trillion deficit this year and Obama’s proposed spending could hinder job creation.
“With this budget (Obama) still plans to double the national debt,” he said in the e-mail. “This astounding new debt will force the United States to borrow most of the money from foreign countries and will (make) it harder for small businesses to get access to the credit they need to create new jobs.”
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student
(02/02/10 1:11am)Report
Who cares about the Pell Grant?
Student loans are the real problem.
Lololol
(02/02/10 1:46am)Report
Forgiving student loans = Promoting financial irresponsibility. You borrowed it, YOU PAY IT BACK.
Now, let’s talk about how this dumbass will have our national debt at 15 TRILLION by, I dunno, NEXT YEAR. Did you know that’s more than our ENTIRE GDP?
15,000,000,000,000
…
President FAIL. I loved his statement “I’d rather be a great one-term president than an OK two-term one”
Ummmmmm… If you’re a great president, you get elected for a SECOND TERM. He knows he’s outta here on Jan. 20th, 2013, and he will just keep digging us a hopeless financial hole until that day. How stupid we were to elect him. Tsk tsk.
collegeloanconsultant
(02/02/10 8:50am)Report
1 million additional students getting a Pell grant will depend on whether or not the EFC ceiling is raised, so more students are eligible.
Logic
(02/02/10 9:30am)Report
How about tax cuts for the parents?
That would make sense.
How about tax credits for businesses that hire new college graduates?
That would make sense.
I suspect that we will hear neither from Obama. He is more concerned with spending 100 billion to “create” a few non-permanent jobs.
Anon
(02/02/10 9:36am)Report
Not that it would be a good thing but if Obama put the deficit to 15b, it would still be less damage than Bush did.
Not that I’m a fan of either.
Read a book
(02/02/10 11:38am)Report
Logic,
You may want to actually read Obama’s plan or the budget he just approved. There are tax cuts for both of the things you accused him of not having.
Pell Grants will help those who are unable to afford a college education. They are grants, I don’t know if you know what a grant is but it does not have to be paid back. This would also help the parents who would have to pony up the money for their children to go to college.
Also not all parents fund higher education for this kids.
Did you watch the state of the union? There are tax cuts for businesses who hire new employees on the way.
Maybe if you actually knew anything you wouldn’t come here and embarrass yourself.
Also let’s take away all of those “non permanent” jobs from the people who had them. Let’s take away all of the infrastructure projects those jobs help make. Where would that leave us and those people?
Instead of using Tea Bag/Republican talking points how about you actually read a book or figure out something on your own.
Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess if the previous administration cared about educating the nation. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess if Nixon didn’t redesign student financial aid to eliminate grants and turn financial aid into loans.
The only way out of this mess is to educate people and this increase in the Pell Grant will allow more people access to higher education.
Inflation
(02/02/10 6:23pm)Report
Increased Pell Grants no limits on tuition increases = much higher tuition. This is why education is expensive. We subsidize higher education and refuse to tie those subsidies to limits on tuition. There is no incentive to lower costs, everyone will just borrow more. Eventually, no one will be able to afford college without government help. We’re almost there already. Look at medical school tuition.