The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Federal education funding awaits review

The importance of the act is highlighted by a 25-page report of recommendations authored by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The report was signed by more than 40 higher education-related organizations, including the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, to which Marquette belongs.

Among the specific actions the report asks Congress to take are doubling the Pell Grant maximum, increasing Federal Work Study from $1 billion to $1.5 billion, and revitalizing the Leveraging Education Assistance Partnership program, which provides state funds for need-based student financial aid. For the 2003-04 school year, the need-based Pell Grant’s maximum was $4,050, according to Coral Taylor, a Marquette financial aid counselor.

However, the requests are not likely to be met.

“Neither (the Pell Grant or Federal Work study increases) has a chance of happening,” said Dan Goyette, director of Student Financial Aid. “In fact, if we have the same Pell Grant and Federal Work Study dollars we have now, we’ll be happy.”

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The report groups its recommendations into nine goals, including improving teacher education, enhancing international education and “expanding access to higher education for low-income students by increasing grant aid and support for early intervention programs.”

The third recommendation specifically had the attention of those preparing the report.

“We urge Congress to focus its energies in this reauthorization on increasing access to higher education for low- and middle income students,” the report said.

Congress reauthorizes the Higher Education Act every four years. If the reauthorization cannot be completed in that time, the act receives an automatic one-year extension, which is typically what happens.

“Congress hasn’t gotten the job done in four years in recent memory; usually it takes five or six years,” Goyette said.

The Higher Education Act’s seventh reauthorization and first since 1998 was supposed to be completed last year, but it was not, due to “ordinary political wrangling over provisions of reauthorization that have policy and spending consequences,” Goyette said.

Now the act is in a special one-year extension, but Congress members are gearing up for the campaign trail and devoting less time to their Congressional duties in Washington, and time is running out, he said.

If the Higher Education Act is not renewed, financial aid money will not disappear, it simply won’t be altered, Goyette said. Changes in inflation, tuition costs and increased cost of living will not impact federal financial aid for higher education students until the act’s next renewal.

Even if Congress returns to Washington in time to reauthorize the act, the source of the requested funds remains a mystery.

“No matter what is authorized, there’s always the problem of funding,” Goyette said. “There just aren’t enough dollars.”

Goyette pointed to decreased federal funding across the board and a middling economy as an obstacle to increased funding.

Passed on Nov. 8, 1965, the Higher Education Act was designed to “strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education.”