Congress slashes Pell Grant awards

Penn students could lose about $100,000 combined in financial aid within the next two years, but most of that funding should be made up by University financial aid.

Due to changes in the funding formula used to qualify for Pell Grants, up to 200 students could either have their aid reduced or cut altogether. Congressional legislation slashed funding for Pell Grants -- a major source of federal financial aid for many college students -- by about $270 million on Nov. 20, 2004.

"The impact for [students] is probably not going to be huge," Penn Director of Financial Aid Bill Schilling said, noting that Penn's financial aid "will cover that loss."

"Penn's priority is going to be to meet the full need of students," he said.

Students who receive the minimum amount of funding -- $400 -- could have their Pell Grants eliminated because of the new funding formula, while those who receive funding up to the maximum grant of $4,050 could have their Pell Grant reduced by $100 to $200, according to Schilling.

The United States Department of Education estimated that 84,000 college students will be left without financial aid to pay for tuition as soon as the new qualifications are implemented. Though the changes are tentatively scheduled to be put in place by the upcoming school year, Schilling said that the cuts may not actually happen until the 2006-2007 school year.

Director of Federal Relations at the Consortium on Financing Higher Education Theodore Bracken described the cuts as "a serious issue for national public policy."

Public universities and community colleges will be "where the impact is probably going to be felt most severely," he said, and the "impact will be significantly less" at schools such as Penn.

Penn's total undergraduate financial aid budget this year will provide about $72 million in need-based aid to students. This figure does not include federal, state, and private grants or Stafford and Perkins loans -- another popular form of federal aid.

Around 45 percent of Penn students are receiving aid through Student Financial Services, but almost 60 percent of students are financing their tuition with some kind of assistance, according to Schilling.

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