Give College Students a Chance

I remember when the Bush Administration started adding more limitations to the Pell Grant and other government aid—including a wider gap for income qualification, which coincided with my own application. A first generation college student, I had only applied in the first place because I knew I had previously qualified—and though scholarships were in the picture, they didn’t cover anything but tuition.

Yeah, George, I’m still mad at you for vastly increasing my college debt unnecessarily—among, of course, many other things…

Today’s college applicants have even more difficulty receiving aid than I did. As costs continue to rise, families are finding it more difficult to pay for an education. My sister had a teacher—a teacher we’d both had, actually, and both are very fond of—just stare at her, aghast that she was attending a community college rather than a state university.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that it simply isn’t affordable to do so for many people—and with a bleak job market awaiting so many graduates, the certainty of paying off that debt is also gone as well.

(By the way, there’s nothing wrong with a community college—my sister received a fine education through the one she just graduated from.)

Fortunately, there are measures in the works to combat this. Democratic Representative George Miller of California, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, is pushing for the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. This piece of legislation is set to help millions of students be able to afford college—if it passes.

What this act would do is mandate that all federal student loans be managed by the government’s Direct Lending program as of 2010, replacing the current system through private lending operations. Without the subsidies to these companies, almost $100 billion in savings would be yielded within a decade—and these saved funds would be redirected into new Pell Grant scholarships and increased Pell Grant availability, as well as expanded Perkins Loans. Interest rates would remain low for need-based student loans.

Community colleges would also benefit, receiving investments in job training programs as well as online course support and early childhood education programs. Nontraditional students and military service members would also have increased aid under the program.

Want to help it pass? Take action through the Braking Through Barriers for Women and Girls (formerly the American Association of University Women, or AAUW) website and ask your representative to support this act.