Although President Bush has not asked for increases in money
awarded as Pell Grants – the need-based federal student aid
– he has proposed $45 million in aid for students who take
more college preparatory courses in high school.
Under the proposal, the Center for State
Scholars would allocate grants up to $1,000 in extra Pell Grant
money to students who take certain high school courses. This
program would act as an incentive for students to take more
rigorous courses in high school but would still factor in a
student’s financial need.
“The basic idea is to reward and
encourage these additional courses,” said Drew Scheberle,
Interim Executive Director of the Center for State Scholars.
“It’s not draining away funding from Pell
Grants.”
Currently the State Scholars program only
operates in 14 states and its main office is in Bush’s home
state, Texas. Plans to expand the program depend on funding. The
president also proposed $12 million to expand the center’s
initiatives, and State Scholars currently has plans to expand to
several states, including Wisconsin, that do not currently have the
program.
Bush’s proposal is receiving mixed reactions.
Pell Grants are completely need-based and are available throughout
a college student’s entire career, but the grants proposed
under the State Scholars program contain a merit component and are
available for the first and second year of college only, called
“front-loading.” The maximum Pell Grant has been frozen
at $4,050 for the past two years.
Steve Van Ess, director of financial services
at the University of Wisconsin, sees a problem with introducing a
merit-based component to the purely need-based Pell Grant program.
According to Van Ess, students who come from lower-income families
have fewer opportunities to do well in high school than students
from the middle and upper classes.
“With a merit-based grant, the people
who need it most are least likely to get it,” Van Ess said.
“Putting more money into the program is great, but we
don’t need to add special criteria.”
But Scheberle points out that while the
proposed grants would have merit-based criteria, they would still
be need-based. The idea is for students to be aware of the criteria
during high school, which could provide incentives to take more
college-prep courses to get the extra grant. The grant is intended
to take into account both performance and need.
“It’s not just after the fact; it
helps to focus students,” Scheberle said.
The front-loading component to the grants is
also meeting criticism. The proposed grants are available in the
first two years of college, when students are most needy. Some
people fear that students will not be able to afford college once
the two-year limit is reached and grants stop providing funding,
causing students to drop out.
“The recent school of thought is that
the students most at risk are borderline on whether they go to
college or not,” Van Ess said.
Front-loading acts to aid students in their
statistically most needy time, and then hopes the students will be
grounded enough by their third year to finance tuition without
using the extra Pell Grant.
The proposal has yet to be passed, so the
State Scholars program depends on the passed budget.
“We could start in Wisconsin as soon as
fall 2004, but we don’t have funding,” Scheberle said.
“Meanwhile, we’re working with other states to set up
programs.”