<p>Parents are expected to contribute to their children’s college education. Pell grants help those kids whose parents are too poor to contribute significantly.</p>
<p>You people do realize that subsidized loans are the reason why college tuition is so high, right?</p>
<p>^ Correct. As long as the government is willing to dole out free money to anybody with a pulse and a high school diploma, colleges can jack up tuition as much as they want and people will continue to attend.</p>
<p>Third party economic rule ftw. It doesn’t help that the fed has devalued our dollar, but I digress.</p>
<p>Yes, subsidized loans which max out at $5,500 per year are the reason why some schools have $60,000 COAs. That completely makes sense.</p>
<p>Oh, wait, no, that makes no sense at all whatsoever.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Well, it could be argued that the easily gotten Parent Plus loans and the recently eliminated old-style Sallie Mae student loans helped jack up prices. </p>
<p>When kids could take out Sallie Mae loans with no co-signers up to the cost of attendance, there was no reason to hold back costs. Kids would just sign their names and get mega loans. </p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with getting rid of Pell and similar free aid to privates. Let them fund their own schools. It annoys me that Calif gives Cal Grants to kids going to privates. Let Stanford, USC and others come up with their own aid or drop their prices.</p>
<p>That would allow more gov’t aid to go towards the lower cost instate schools.</p>
<p>Yes, PLUS loans are another story entirely. But those have nothing to do with Stafford Loans.</p>
<p>according to a researcher at Ohio University, </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Rising</a> College Costs: A Federal Role? - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/rising-college-costs-a-federal-role/]Rising”>Rising College Costs: A Federal Role? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Can the publics handle all of the Pell-eligible student population receiving aid at privates? Is there room?</p>
<p>I don’t buy the bigger pell = higher tuition argument. Public school tuition is out of control because states have cut back public-school funding. Private schools are such a tiny part of the overall student population that what they do or don’t do is irrelevant to the discussion.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is really saying that Pell is driving up tuitions.</p>
<p>Can the publics handle all of the Pell-eligible student population receiving aid at privates? Is there room?</p>
<p>They don’t need to. The privates can still offer aid and cover the Pell amount themselves. A “pell kid” certainly can’t afford a private on his own, it takes institutional funds.</p>
<p>And, the argument really shouldn’t be…can the publics accommodate them all. The public K-12s couldn’t accommodate all the kids if the privates all shut down, but we don’t subsidize the private K-12s.</p>
<p>the point of Pell is not to make privates more affordable…it’s to make a college education more affordable. And that generally means low cost college education at your local public. The goal should be to make attending your local public a better economic choice. </p>
<p>When Calif talked about cutting Cal Grants to privates, USC immediately said that they would cover the loss.</p>
<p>How come my community college, despite everyone receiving aid, cannot afford all the programs? The answer is not loans, but the lack of state funding. Financial aid accounts for 2/3 of the funding, but the other 1/3 is operating costs. Students need their aid in order to go to school, and in order to pay operating costs. If operating costs were lower, the 2/3 funding would be lower. But where can you cut at a community college? You can’t. It’s cheaper at a community college because they don’t have all the extras. It’s shortfall is because the budget, already balanced, was cut into by the state.</p>
<p>It is the extras that cost so much at a university, and at the heart the lack of public funding for the operating costs. When operating costs become higher, so does tuition. If schools want to become cheaper one of two things need to happen: cut operating costs (no mental health services, tutoring, etc) or increase public funding.</p>
<p>My in state college options-</p>
<ol>
<li>Community college-a 45 minute drive and back in an awful car (in fear of breaking down) for about 4 grand JUST tuition.</li>
<li>Small college really only meant for teachers-7 grand (for just tuition) an hour plus away from me. OR room and board for 10 grand.</li>
<li>State University-10 grand for just tuition 35 minutes away.</li>
</ol>
<p>NONE of them having my major. And the state grant amount received is between $200-$700. Everyone says “oh, public college!” but that’s not fair when your state has expensive tuition and so few options. Sure, residents in California or Florida should be fine with in-state schools…but what about the rest of us?</p>
<p>$10,000 tuition for a public is way less than $50,000 tuition for a private.</p>
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<p>Write your state representative?</p>
<p>The debate over a “more proper” distribution of pell is slightly sickening. </p>
<p>Although I have a very high GPA in college, my high school performance was mediocre. Why was it mediocre you ask? I had to work 30 hours or more each week. I can easily see the same situation occurring in college. The Pell grant however does give me freedom to limit my work-weeks to 10 hours a week. </p>
<p>I personally do agree that the Financial Aid process could use some cleaning up; fraud and for-profit schools easily deflate available funding. I find it hard to believe for-profit schools can in any way be deemed “necessary” for a student. I do have a few friends who opted to close for-profit schools for such studies as “veterinarian technician” instead of the the very far away, and large, technical college that also offers the program. </p>
<p>I think Parent Plus loans play a larger part in the tuition increases than Stafford loans. You wouldn’t believe how eager financial aid officers, and even private financial institutions, promote the Parent Plus loan as the “only” option for student loans. </p>
<p>I’m afraid that the ridiculously high debt burden much of America is facing is going to greatly harm the countries economy as 20-somethings avoid spending money and instead pay off their increasing loans.</p>
<p>I think, in some instances, cutting funding from Pell Grants may be warranted.</p>
<p>For example, I was ticked off when funding was cut from the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship program so that more money could be appropriated to the Pell Grant program. I think, and feel free to disagree, that it makes more sense to reward students with high academic success than it does to reward students just because they come from poor families.</p>
<p>The government should, IMO, take money from Pell to refund and expand the Byrd program.</p>
<p>Well, one can certainly debate why the government awards merit scholarships with tax dollars too. Why should an upper middle class or wealthy A student get a scholarship while a B+ student from a middle, lower middle class, or even wealthy family does not?</p>
<p>For those students who are academically talented with the stats that schools want, there are ever so many options for them. Those kids who have families that simply do not have the money for them to go to school don’t have much in the way of options. The PELL helps these students enormously.</p>
<p>^^Agree with cpt.</p>
<p>I don’t think that I agree with students receiving merit awards funded using tax dollars.</p>