Proposed Pell Grant cut could affect Penn

Last month, Republicans in the United States House of Representatives announced a budget proposal that would cut funding for Pell Grants by $2.3 billion.

At Penn, about 14 percent of undergraduates receive aid from the Pell Grant Program, which provides need-based grant money to low-income students, according to U.S. News and World Report. Under the new budget, the program would no longer apply to students who qualify for less than 10 percent of the maximum grant worth $5,550.

“A relatively small number of students who currently receive the minimum Pell Grant of $555 would no longer be eligible,” Student Financial Services spokeswoman Marlene Bruno wrote in an email.

The maximum family income level for zero expected contribution to the cost of college would drop from $30,000 to $15,000 with these cuts.

The provision that would have a greater impact for students would be the increase in “the expected contribution from student income, and reinstating certain parental income,” such as untaxed Social Security benefits and Earned Income Credit, “in the Federal formula,” Bruno wrote.

However, Bruno added that any loss of federal funding would be made up by Penn’s financial aid.

The reactions of Penn students and faculty to these cuts have been mixed.

Economics professor Holger Sieg believes that, “given the magnitude of the deficit,” these Pell Grant cuts will be “irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.”

To make a real dent in the deficit, Congress would have to go after Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or the defense budget, Sieg said, but “no one wants to touch them” since “they’re middle-class entitlements.”

College senior Emma Ellman-Golan, the former president and current legislative director of Penn Democrats, believes that, “in our current economic climate, decreasing access to education is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.”

“The proposal by Congressional Republicans will serve only to undermine the educational advancement necessary for economic progress,” Ellman-Golan said, adding that she feels the proposal is “both misguided and completely irresponsible.”

The president of Penn College Republicans, Wharton and College senior Charles Gray, disagrees.

“This proposal is part of the Republican Party’s decision to do the right thing,” said Gray, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist.

He explained that Republicans do not want to eliminate the program, but rather, to “revise the Pell Grant program so that it is more efficient.”

Gray added that if government spending is not cut now, he believes the program will eventually have to be cut entirely. “The Republicans want to preserve the program in a fiscally responsible fashion.”

However, Sieg does not believe that cuts to the Pell Grant Program make economic sense.

“Overall, I think providing access to higher education and making it more affordable is something that very few economists would question,” he said, explaining that benefits from a college education include higher wages and an increased likelihood of employment.

“If anything, we would like have more people receive higher education, not less.”

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