Bush's Plan for Pell Grants Divides 2-Year and 4-Year Colleges

By STEPHEN BURD

Advocates for community colleges and for four-year institutions find

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themselves at odds over an expected Bush-administration proposal to increase spending on Pell Grants for first-year students by $1-billion in fiscal 2002.

White House officials have described the plan to college lobbyists in several private meetings over the past month. Some lobbyists for four-year institutions -- both public and private -- hope to persuade the administration to alter its plan before Mr. Bush submits his budget request in April.

"We are delighted that President Bush wants to increase the Pell Grant program by $1-billion," says Stephanie Giesecke, director of budget and appropriations for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "But we'd like to see all recipients of Pell Grants benefit."

Advocates for community colleges, in contrast, support Mr. Bush's plan, and hope that Congress will get behind it. "As this proposal is conceived to increase access for the neediest students, this is something that many of my members look favorably on," says David S. Baime, director of government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

While campaigning in August, Mr. Bush proposed raising the maximum Pell Grant for first-year students to $5,100 within five years. The big first-year award would help keep low-income students in college by allowing them to avoid taking out large student loans right away, he said.

Under the proposal, Congress would add money to the Pell Grant maximum for first-year students, without reducing support for students in their second year of college and beyond. Those students would remain eligible for the maximum grant that Congress appropriates each year. Next fall, the maximum will be $3,750.

If $1-billion were added to the first-year awards in 2002, college lobbyists estimate, the maximum grant for freshman Pell recipients would rise by $600, to $4,350.

Lobbyists for four-year colleges have long opposed efforts to "front-load" Pell Grants. Such policies, they say, could prompt disadvantaged students to drop out when their grants are reduced. These lobbyists prefer an increase that benefits all eligible students.

If Congress adds $1-billion to the program and divides the additional money equally among students in all four years of college, the maximum Pell Grant would rise by about $300, the lobbyists say.

While advocates for community colleges champion Mr. Bush's plan, they also support the position of the Student Aid Alliance, a coalition of college and student groups that is calling for a $600 increase in the maximum award for all recipients.

Mr. Baime says he expects to "lobby vigorously" for the alliance's proposal. "We think a $600 increase in the Pell maximum is well justified, fiscally attainable, and would work wonders for the financing needs of needy community-college students," he says.

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