March, 2019
Washington -- Finally someone is talking sense on what needs to be done in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. From Inside Higher Ed (emphasis added):
"Senator Patty Murray said Thursday that an overhaul of the Higher Education Act should tackle college affordability directly by addressing state investment in public colleges and boosting federal spending on need-based aid programs like Pell Grants.
"Murray, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate's education committee, argued that even when college students receive federal grant aid, it covers a diminishing proportion of the total cost of college -- meaning more low-income and minority students in particular are forced to take out student loans."
At long last someone in Congress is acknowledging that throwing more money at Pell Grants will not, in and of itself, necessarily make college more affordable for those with financial need. When states and institutions decrease their efforts in response, the financially needy go more deeply into debt.
One of the biggest mistakes in the history of the Higher Education Act has been Congressional funding of programs that do not take into account state and institutional funding. That is the legacy of the Education Amendments of 1972, which created programs like Pell Grants that dropped state and institutional matching requirements. The original HEA of 1965 wisely leveraged state and institutional funds, but that approach has atrophied.
I know whereof I speak, having been both a state budget official and an institutional official who witnessed the eager disinvestment of many of my colleagues. My research has also concluded, based on empirical evidence, that low-income borrowing goes up regardless of whether Pell levels are up or down. I also invite attention to this article, in the journal Publius, which demonstrates the greater efficacy of matching programs.
Acknowledging the problem is the first step in correcting it.
