On February 15, President Bush signed legislation to increase the maximum Pell Grant by $260 to $4,310. This is the first increase in the Pell Grant since 2003. It will become available to low-income students in July, for the upcoming 2007-08 academic year.
Also, in late January, the House overwhelmingly approved the College Student Relief Act (H.R. 5) which would steadily cut the interest rate on new subsidized loans for undergraduate borrowers to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent between July 2007 and July 2011. The bill's $6 billion price tag would be financed by increasing fees and shrinking subsidies for loan providers, especially big lenders. H.R. 5 is expected to be considered shortly by the Senate as part of a larger higher education bill.
The Bush administration’s $56 billion education budget for FY 2008 unveiled in February proposed to boost the maximum Pell Grant award by $550, increase the maximum Academic Competitiveness Grant by 50 percent, and provide $24 million for the National Security Language Initiative.
However, to pay for these spending increases, the administration would then eliminate the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG) program, Perkins Loan Program, the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) program, and the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarships, and cut subsidies to student loan lenders by $18.8 billion.
The FY 2008 Bush budget also allocated $25 million for the National Center for Education Statistics to "conduct a pilot study on the development of a postsecondary student level data system that is essential for computing postsecondary completion rates and measuring the true costs of higher education.”
Page : 1/1
