To qualify for Pell grant, you have to meet the schools definition of full time, or part time, or whatever the school requires to qualify for even a partial grant. One c,as at a time is unlikely to do it.
It the article posted in the original post,it says this bill shas little chance of passing, but it’s possible congress could consider a system where one doesn’t qualify for additional pell money unless adequate progress is being made, and make that adequate progress standard.
Unfortunately, it does. A person making an extra $3328 a year in the 15% bracket would pay about $500 more per year. If they received a $5000 grant for 3 years, it would take 30 years to make up the amount paid.
Sorry, twoinanddone, I meant two classes per semester. The school I had in mind for an adult learner I know has a system whereby you take one class at a time, for a half semester each, for a total of two classes per semester, which meets the definition of half-time at that school and qualifies for a Pell grant. It will depend on the school but yes, must be at least half time.
You already have to make adequate progress as defined by finishing 75% of the classes you enroll in without withdrawing.
No eduction is ever wasted.
I think this bill is part of the sentiment that college should be preparing you for a job and if you don’t complete, the money has been wasted.
For the lower income students, job readiness is a real concern and a valid target. However I am not on board with saying that it was a waste of money if they only complete a partial sequence. Who am I to judge the benefit they felt they received from a history class, etc.
The bill does not appear to even have text at this point. Would the 6 year limit apply to both associates degrees and bachelors degrees? It would not seem reasonable to allow 6 years for a 2-year degree, but then also 6 years for a 4-year degree.
Agree that this proposed bill is a stupid idea. Hopefully a short-lived one as well.
I think this is mean spirited, although I can understand wanting people to pay back if they don’t finish. However, it seems unfair for another reason. What if a person gets a Pell grant for 3 years but doesn’t finish the third year of school and doesn’t return. Why should they have to pay back grants for years of schooling they did complete?
“it would take 30 years to make up the amount paid.”
But you’re only looking at direct repayment of federal income tax. I’m looking at the overall contribution to economic growth by people who make more money. They consume more and pay more state and local taxes. The higher earner may not need food stamps, may not need Medicaid, may not need Section 8. People who make more money are less likely to have kids in the foster care system. They are less likely to go to jail. There are all kinds of societal returns on the Pell investment besides federal income tax.
I’m fine with the whole idea of paying back the money if you don’t eventually graduate. To accommodate those students that have to take time off for various life events, I’d have no problem tying the pay back requirement to 12 semesters of Pell disbursement as opposed to 6 calendar years. But there would still need to be some kind of max time limit as well to avoid the open-ended “I’m still planning on going back eventually” argument.
^Still a bad idea.
I don’t think Pell grants should have to be repaid, but I have no problem with the government not advancing more money if the student isn’t advancing toward a degree. After freshman ‘year’ (be that an actual year or more), the student should only have one year of Pell money, AND 1/4 of the credit needed for a degree. Not just a random set of college credits, but 1/4 of the credits needed for a chemistry degree, or history, or engineering, etc. Is this student going to graduate? Right now, someone could be on their 4th year of Pell grants with only basic classes and no way to graduate in a year.
Im all for that!!
People have all kinds of circumstances. Are you going to sit around and judge whose circumstances are worthy and whose are not? Just say “hey, it sucks to be you”? Do you at least have a mechanism for those who encounter a tragedy which prevents them from progressing in a manner acceptable to YOU? Or is it just a matter of “it sucks to be you?”
" Not just a random set of college credits, but 1/4 of the credits needed for a chemistry degree, or history, or engineering, etc. Is this student going to graduate?"
Even many of the very best and most selective colleges in the country don’t require students to declare a major until the end of their sophomore year so this proposal flies in the face of how things are done at many, many rigorous academic institutions.
Seems like folks here who support some kind of repayment plan see education as purely vo-tech.
No, one suggestion was to make standard the ‘adequate progress’ that the student needs to make in order to get more Pell grants. Not just finishing classes but finishing the RIGHT classes toward earning a degree. We all know many students who keep changing majors and stay in school for 5 or 6 years but do not graduate. That is what seems to be driving this reduction in Pell grants or requirement to repay. Most college advising seems to be better today than it was years ago (I don’t remember EVER meeting with an adviser, just getting a list of what was required to graduate, picking my classes and hoping I had the right ones when I applied to graduate).
Rather than requiring those who don’t graduate to repay Pell, I’d rather they not give them the money in the first place. If after 3 years of getting Pell grants yet not making any progress toward an actual degree (you have 90 credits of 100 level course and can’t possibly graduate with a degree in History that requires 30 hours of upper division classes plus at least 20 hours of core classes that you don’t have), don’t give this student any more Pell money that, under this current proposal, he’d have to repay. With good supervision along the way, a student wouldn’t get into that kind of trouble. People taking one or two classes at a time are in danger of that. They need a plan toward graduation. I don’t have a problem with Pell being based on a plan toward a degree.
I have two Pell grant students. One is right on track, taking 19 credits this semester in order to graduate in May on time because, while she’d get another Pell grant if she had to go a 9th semester, all her other grants/scholarships will be gone and that pell grant is a drop in the bucket towards COA. The other child has changed majors 3 times and does have way too many lower level courses. I’m on her about graduating, her adviser is on her, we are threading a needle to get it done in 8 semesters. Again, she can have a few more semesters of the Pell grant but all the other grants will fade away, and she’d have no way to pay for those last 15-20 credits. She needs to stay on track. If Pell required that, I’m fine with it (a form from the school showing the plan to graduate). If Pell lets her do whatever she wants (current requirements) and then wants her to repay the grants, that’s not good. Set the program up for success.
Right now, there is no requirement that a Pell recipient be making significant progress toward the degree. You have to be registered as a degree seeking student, but no requirement that you take the right classes toward that degree. Want to register as an Art major? Great, but no one is requiring you to actually take art classes before your Pell money is released. You can take two history classes, 4 math classes, 13 English classes, all 100 level, and you are still in compliance with the current Pell requirements as long as you are taking and passing those classes and are seeking a degree.
What this bill would do is to transfer yet more risk onto the shoulders of individuals. Remember the old days with old-fashioned pensions? Gone. More recently, access to quality health care through the Affordable Care Act? Already mostly gone. Yes, obviously there needs to be “skin in the game” but it is outrageous to penalize those who fail to graduate in this way. Come on folks. If they are sufficiently low income to qualify for Pell Grants, they are already disadvantaged. If they start college and fail to graduate, they likely are in very low paid jobs and will struggle to pay off the Pell money. Why in God’s name would anyone favor kicking someone when they are down like that? It is in the best interests of our nation to have more college educated people and for those who fail to complete college, maybe they can at least pay for housing and health care and maybe give THEIR kids a better shot at college. It does noone any good to punish like this. We need to be encouraging folks to stick their necks out, attempt college, work hard and try to finish. But not everyone can finish. Still, we all need more folks to try. This legislation is all part of a large legislative to just bury folks who are already struggling, much like eliminating the ability to deduct high medical expenses. It is short sighted and vindictive and reflects a desire to punish.
How would undecided undeclared frosh students be handled in this type of scheme?
Also, some majors do not have voluminous requirements or long prerequisite sequences, so a student could theoretically change into such majors in their fourth or even fifth semester after not having taken any needed prerequisite courses for the major, but still graduate in eight semesters of normal course loads.
Assuming the point of education is to build skills that help in the job market, having the actual degree isn’t all there is to it. There is benefit in getting some credits completed even if the degree is never completed or not completed until many years later. I see no reason for this clause to “pay back” – the value of education isn’t just in the piece of paper at the end.
Also, to be realistic, the people least able to pay these back are going to be the ones who didn’t finish their degree, since earnings are generally higher for those with a college education. They may very well have loans on top of this – essentially it turns the Pell grant into another loan, which is ridiculous.
Finally, the students most likely to not graduate are at for profit colleges. The answer to making sure the taxpayers are getting bang for their buck isn’t having students repay loans, but instead to hold those colleges more accountable for their outcomes. But we have someone in the White House who ran a scam of a for profit college, so legislation surely isn’t going to go down that path. Instead, those colleges will continue to collect the Pell Grant money and the STUDENT will pay back the government.
This is just Scrooge-like.
“How would undecided undeclared frosh students be handled in this type of scheme?”
The adviser would certify that the student had taken the correct number of freshmen and sophomore courses. If there is not a sequence of courses needed, there is still usually some type of requirement that there be a couple of science classes, a math class, a foreign language. Truly if there are none, then the adviser can sign off on that and the Pell grant issued for the next year of classes.
My daughter goes to see her adviser and they put all the courses into a program that shows what requirement it meets. What requirement does French 1 fill? How about geology? if there aren’t enough at the right level, or if there are 60 credits that have yet to be taken, then this student really is not a junior even if she has 75 credits. If the program requires one humanities class and you’ve taken 10, shouldn’t you be steered to take something else?
College is fun. I would have loved to have stayed and taken a few of these and a little of that, but I’m okay with the government restricting Pell grants to those on a plan. There is room in most undergrad programs to allow a few classes that don’t fulfill any specific requirement except to get you to 120 credits, but at some point you have to buckle down and follow the plan.
Haven’t read the whole thread, but I can share something that might be related. In the 1980s, there were things called NDSL loans. (maybe there’s something similar today) Upon graduation, I knew that if I taught in special education for five years, my loan would not have to be paid back. The onus was on me to fulfill that; I did not. I quit teaching to have children. I had to pay back what I still owed since I taught for only 2 1/2 years. I had assumed I’d easily teach 5 years, but I did know the risk and the rules.
post 34 is an excellent post to skillfully and reasonably point out the pitfalls of setting standards on students from the student’s perspective. I don’t think that’s wrong, but I do think it is incomplete.
The other perspective, no one has mentioned here yet, is from the taxpayer’s perspective. If this law was passed just as written, the taxpayer might get less taxes forcibly taking his/her income for less motivated students. I think higher education is a good idea for many. But where/when did it become MY OBLIGATION to pay for others’ higher education? How is it that I am obligated to help bring up the disadvantaged student post 34 talks of by paying for his college?
Therein lies a tough balance for lawmakers when it comes to students vs. taxpayers. Just because helping more people attend college benefits those individuals, and those that graduate can help society, that does not automatically make it the obligation of all taxpayers to fund those individuals. Every bit of assistance we give to students is a bit of money earned that is forcibly taken away from the taxpayer.
On this part I differ from post 34- I don’t think the intent of the law is to bury those who do not finish. I think the intent of the law is to expect individuals to think harder about taking taxpayer’s money, and to give more incentive to succeed to those that do accept the taxpayers’ money.