House bill to appropriate extra $1,000 to Pell Grant recipients

Two Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives recently introduced a bill that would increase the amount of federal Pell Grants for low-income students who take challenging classes in high school.\nThe bill would provide $1,000 more in Pell Grants in the first and second years of college to 36,000 students who meet the requirements. Students would have to maintain a 3.0 GPA while in college to continue receiving the funding.\nThe proposal would introduce merit components to the Pell Grant program for the first time. Pell Grants are currently limited to $4,050 a year and are strictly need-based.\nThe Pell Grants Plus Act, introduced March 4, is based on a proposal in President George W. Bush's budget request for the 2005 fiscal year.\nSue Allmon, director of financial aid at Ivy Tech-Bloomington, said the Pell Grant should not be transformed into a merit-based grant.\n"I'm not a believer in paying for grades," she said. "Aid should be based on need, and scholarships should be based on merit."\nShe said the program could, however, be a good thing if handled properly.\n"The state of Indiana does it, too, with higher education grants," she said. "Students with a Core-40 or Academic Honors diploma (can get a) higher percent of what they're eligible to receive." \nShe said in order for the program to be beneficial, more money would have to be added to the program rather than taking it out of current funds, which could reduce or take away aid to some students.\nBut Allmon said she doesn't believe the proposal will pass the legislature.\n"I don't think it's going to pass or get to Bush's desk," she said. "There are too many representatives and senators who believe the Pell Grant should be based strictly on need and not tie (in) academics."\nThe bill is sponsored by Max Burns, R-Ga. and Ric Keller, R-Fla. \nBill Ehrich, associate director for client service at the Office of Student Financial Assistance at IU, said he thinks it could be a very hard system to keep up.\n"How are they going to monitor this? If they do it for freshmen, are they going to say you have to have certain GPA? Test scores? Class rank? Monitoring could be a nightmare," Ehrich said, referring to the fact that the required course work would be prescribed by educators and business leaders, according to the U.S. Department of Education. \nHe said if the extra grants were based on curriculum, like the Core-40 requirements in Indiana, it may be feasible, but he said not all states have a similar standard.\nEhrich said by making more money available to students taking rigorous high-school course loads, it may leave vocational and trade-school students behind. \n"If you go to college, you're probably thinking about it by the time you're a freshman, and you're going to take a different curriculum than someone who's going to be a welder," he said. "It's not helping people in community colleges attending classes more job-related."\nBut for students eligible for the Pell Grants who take college-preparatory classes in high school, the extra $1,000 would be a nice payoff for hard work.\n"If I knew I was going to get an extra $1,000, I would definitely do it to have more money," said Drew Boyd, a sophomore at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and a current Pell Grant recipient. "In my case, my Pell Grant just pays enough for tuition. Another $1,000 would help out with (the cost of) books and other things."\nEhrich, like Allmon, said he doesn't feel the proposal will go anywhere and could be attributed to the re-election coming up. \nThe Pell Grants Plus Act would link the additional aid to a voluntary program called State Scholars and would be limited to the states in which that program operates, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article. Fourteen states currently have the program. \n-- Contact assistant copy chief Brittany Hite at bhite@indiana.edu.