An e-mail spat has broken out between the chairman of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education, Charles Miller, and the president of the American Council on Education, David Ward. On Friday, Mr. Miller sent a scathing e-mail message to Mr. Ward criticizing him and the ACE for condemning the administration over a proposal in President Bush’s 2008 budget that would eliminate the Supplement Educational Opportunity Grant program at the same time it would increase the maximum Pell Grant.

“The term floated by the ACE, ‘rob Peter to pay Paul,’ is harsh for a professional organization which represents institutional interests not necessarily aligned with the interest of students,” Mr. Miller wrote in the message, which he forwarded to The Chronicle. “Does the ACE think that the only thing that can happen to a financial-aid program is an increase in funding?”

In an e-mail response to Mr. Miller, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, Mr. Ward wrote that an ACE representative never said “rob Peter to pay Paul,” or “rob Peter to pay Pell,” which was essentially the phrase attributed to Luke Swarthout, a higher-education associate for the State Public Interest Research Groups, in an article in The Chronicle last week. (Mr. Swarthout was actually quoted as saying, “They’re robbing Peter to pay Pell.”)

Misquotes aside, Mr. Ward wrote that “we do not believe that the administration’s proposal to kill this program [SEOG] will boost access to higher education for low-income students, nor do we think that it will result in an actual increase in grants to many low-income students even with the proposed increase in Pell Grants.”