Brown touts Pell grants in bill
Wapakoneta Daily News – A U.S. Congressman claims savings generated from line items in the new health care legislation will help fund “the largest federal expansion of student aid in our nation’s history.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said the legislation would help more students afford college by increasing the maximum Pell grant amount and by making federal student loans easier to repay by capping their repayments.
“This is a victory for college students and middle class families,” Brown said in a prepared statement during a media teleconference. “For too long, the government propped up private lenders in the student loan program by the federal government paying them subsidies even as the federal government made loans directly to students at a lower cost.”
The federal government currently funds 88 percent of all federal student loans, whether they are loans lent to students directly through the government or emergency aid programs student lenders have relied on since the credit crisis in 2008.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the move would save the government $61 billion which could be used to fund Pell grants, Brown said.
The legislation would increase the maximum Pell grant award to $5,500 for the next academic year and then to grow to nearly $6,000 in the future.
