The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has received a $136,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education to study the Pell Grant program. The 12-month project will examine the original intent of the program, how it has evolved over the years, and how it can be improved to expand access to more students and to function more efficiently.

The association described the study as a response to the recent report by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. That report described the existing federal student-aid system as “confusing, complex, inefficient, duplicative,” and said it “frequently does not direct aid to students who truly need it.”