Submitted Resolutions

SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - January 24, 2005)

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the first piece of legislation that I will sponsor in the 109th Congress--a resolution calling on the Senate to strengthen the Pell grant program so that more families can afford higher education.

The Pell grant program is the single largest source of grant aid for postsecondary education funded by the Federal Government. It provides grants to students based on their level of financial need to support their studies at the institutions they have chosen to attend. For this fiscal year, the Pell program is funded at $12.8 billion and is estimated to serve more than 5.3 million students.

I am pleased to have Senator FEINGOLD and Senator COLEMAN joining me in this bipartisan effort to marshal additional Federal resources for the Pell program. They each have been a leader in the effort to expand access to higher education.

Our system of higher education is in many ways the envy of the world, but its benefits have not been equally available. Unfortunately, it is still the case that one of the most determinative factors of whether students will pursue higher education is their family income. Students from families with incomes above $75,000 are more than twice as likely to attend college as students from families with incomes of less that $25,000.

Even more unsettling are studies demonstrating the negative effect of unmet financial need on college attendance for even the most academically prepared students. Among the most highly qualified high school students, those from low-income families were 43 percent less likely to attend college than their wealthier counterparts.

To help remedy these inequities, the Federal Government has wisely invested in a need-based system of student financial aid designed to help remove the economic barriers to higher education. Central to this effort over the past 30 years has been the Pell grant program. This program was designed as the cornerstone of Federal student assistance.

Unfortunately, the purchasing power of the Pell grant has been significantly eroded in recent years, forcing students to rely increasingly on loans to finance their higher education. In 1975, the maximum Pell grant covered approximately 80 percent of the costs of attending a public, 4-year institution. Today, it covers less than half of these costs, forcing students to make up the difference by taking on larger and larger amounts of debt. On average, students from the University of Maine graduate with approximately $18,000 in debt from Federal student loans alone, and this reflects national trends. As startling as this figure is, it does not include additional indebtedness that many students incur through private loans or credit card debt to finance their education.

The decline in the value of grant aid and the growing reliance on loans bring other negative consequences. The staggering amount of loans can force some students to abandon their plans to attend college altogether. According to the College Board, low-income families are significantly less willing, by almost 50 percent, to finance a college education through borrowed money than their wealthier counterparts.

That does not surprise me. Many working families in Maine are committed to living within their means. Understandably, they are extremely wary of the staggering amount of debt that is now required to finance a college education.

I also know this to be true from my experiences as a college administrator at Husson College in Maine. At Husson, 85 to 90

percent of students currently receive some sort of Federal financial aid, and approximately 60 percent of students receive Pell grants.

As Linda Conant, the financial aid director at Husson told me, ``You cannot imagine how difficult it is to sit with a family and to explain to them the amount of loans that are needed to finance a post-secondary degree. It scares them. That is why Pell grant aid is so important for low-income families. For these families, loans don't always work, but Pell does.''

I also heard from Judy Kenney from Northern Maine about the importance of Pell grants. Judy lives in Castle Hill, not far from my home town of Caribou. Her daughter and son both were able to attend college with the help of Pell grants. As she told me, ``At the time, my husband Maylen was farming and having a rough go of it and I was a teacher and didn't make much. But the Pell grants my children received made it possible for them to graduate, one from the University of New England and one from Thomas College. Without these grants, they couldn't have finished and now they are making good wages and paying taxes!''

Judy couldn't be more right on both counts. Not only can the typical bachelor's degree recipient expect to earn about 73 percent more over a lifetime than a high school graduate, they also typically contribute 100 percent more in Federal income taxes than the average high school graduate. So this is truly a Federal investment that pays for itself over the long run.

We also know that having a well-educated workforce is crucial to our economic future and competitiveness in the global economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that over the next 10 years, there will be significant growth in jobs requiring at least some post-secondary education. So increasingly, higher education is going to be necessary to ensure employability and to prepare Americans to participate in tomorrow's economy.

Pell grants make the difference in whether students have access to higher education, and a chance to participate fully in the American dream. That is why today I am introducing a resolution calling on the Senate to begin restoring the value of the Pell grant program.

This resolution calls on the Senate to raise the Pell maximum grant award to $4,500, a $450 increase in a single year. This increase is long overdue. The maximum grant award has been essentially level-funded for 4 straight years--at $4,050 for the past 3 years and only a $50 increase in FY 2002.

During these 4 years, think of the students who might have entered college and graduated with a degree, if only they had received additional Pell grant aid. Pell grants are targeted to the neediest of students--recipients have a median family income of only $15,200. An additional $450 in Pell grant aid may very well be the deciding factor on whether these students can pursue their college dreams.

The resolution also calls on the Senate to amend the Higher Education Act to provide higher authorization levels for the Pell maximum grant that would allow for a doubling of the maximum grant to $9,000 over the next 5 years. This is an ambitious goal but a worthy one for a nation that understands the opportunities that a college education brings.

As my colleagues know, the Higher Education Act is expected to be reauthorized this year. As the Senate HELP Committee considers the reauthorization, it is my hope that this resolution will prompt a discussion about the need for the maximum grant to grow.

I know that my good friends Senator ENZI, the new chairman of the Senate HELP Committee; Senator KENNEDY, the ranking member; Senator ALEXANDER, the chairman of the new Education and Early Childhood Development Subcommittee; and his Democratic counterpart will all work hard with other committee members to produce a strong reauthorization bill. I look forward to working with them further; they are all champions of ensuring greater access to quality education for all Americans, regardless of their financial means.

The President also has recently announced his intention to include a proposal in his 2006 budget request to eliminate the Pell shortfall and to provide an increase in the maximum grant of $100 for each of the next 5 years. I commend the President for focusing on Pell grants, and I hope that we can work together to provide a more substantial increase for the maximum grant for the upcoming year. An increase of approximately $100 for each of the next 5 years will not be enough to increase the purchasing power of Pell grants and will not keep pace with inflation or rising tuition costs. For 2004-2005, the average costs of tuition and fees for a public, 4-year institution rose by over 10 percent.

I will ask unanimous consent to have a letter of support for my legislation printed in the RECORD. This letter is from the Student Aid Alliance, a coalition of more than 60 organizations representing students, colleges and universities. Founded by the American Council on Education and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Student Aid Alliance includes members such as the American Association of Community Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, to name just a few. I am pleased to have their support.

Mr. President, now is the time for us to make a commitment to raising the Pell maximum award to $4,500 for the upcoming award year. The Pell grant program is the foundation of making good on the American promise of access to higher education. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this resolution.

I ask unanimous consent to have the letter to which I referred printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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