What the House Republican proposal to cut $77 billion in mandatory Pell Grant funding means for students
This post was revised on March 28 to include supplemental mandatory funding that would also be eliminated under the House proposal to cut all mandatory funding
While the Trump administration’s budget raids $3.9 billion in discretionary Pell Grant funding in fiscal year 2018 and remains silent on Pell Grant mandatory funding, House Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee have made clear their plan to eliminate all $77 billion in mandatory Pell Grant funding over ten years.
This House plan to eliminate mandatory Pell funding would have profoundly harmful effects for students and put college further out of reach for millions of Americans. Mandatory funding currently pays for $1,060 of the current maximum Pell Grant (almost one fifth of the $5,920 grant in school year 2017-18), which already covers the lowest share of the cost of attending college in over 40 years.
The $7.2 billion in mandatory Pell Grant funding in FY 2018 alone is the equivalent of the average Pell Grant awards for 2.0 million students—one in four students receiving Pell Grants. This is more than all the Pell Grant recipients attending college in Texas, Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio combined (1.9 million students).
Prior harmful cuts to Pell Grants, combined with an improving economy, have reduced program costs and created temporary reserve Pell Grant funding. Student advocates and more than 100 members of Congress have called for using this reserve to restore some of the lost purchasing power of Pell Grants and to reinstate access to grants year round. Rather than invest these reserve funds in Pell Grants for students, the president’s budget simply cuts $3.9 billion in FY 2018. The House plan that would restore grants year round while cutting $77 billion over 10 years means Congress will almost certainly drain the reserve funds, briefly hiding the full magnitude and consequences of eliminating mandatory Pell Grant funding.
The House proposal to eliminate all mandatory funding would cut Pell Grant funding by $7.2 billion in FY 2018 alone. Even if Congress used all the Pell Grant reserve funds to replace the Pell mandatory funding in FY 2018, it would lead to a $2.7 billion Pell Grant funding gap the next year (FY 2019). To close this gap, Congress would have to eliminate grants entirely for more than 700,000 students or cut all students’ grants by an average of almost $350, or both eliminate and cut grants. The funding gap would increase each year, requiring even more severe Pell Grant cuts going forward.
It is unconscionable to create a Pell Grant funding crisis by eliminating all mandatory funding and try to mask it using the program’s temporary reserve. Rather than making deep cuts to Pell Grants, Congress should instead invest existing Pell Grant funding in helping students whose urgent needs include restored access to grants year round, an increase in the maximum award, and an extension of the grant’s inflation adjustments that expire after this year (FY 2017).
Graphics provided by Young Invincibles.
