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As some policymakers in Washington are pushing to reduce the federal deficit and debt, a  provides a concise explanation of federal spending for domestic and global health programs and services, which could be part of any conversation about curbing federal spending.

Federal spending on health programs and services accounted for 30 percent of net federal spending in fiscal year 2022 — or $1.7 trillion out of a total of $5.9 trillion. Specifically, Medicare accounted for 13 percent of the total, Medicaid and CHIP accounted for 10 percent, other domestic health spending accounted for 5 percent, hospital and medical care for veterans was 2 percent, and global health was 0.1 percent. (By comparison, Social Security accounted for 21 percent of net federal spending that year, while defense accounted for 13 percent.)

Every year, Congress is tasked with creating and passing a federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This process is often  and, in the recent past, disagreements over funding have led to federal government shutdowns.

The  following the President’s budget proposal submission, and can last as long as fall or winter of that year. As this year’s budget process reaches its climax, here is what you should know about the budget process, and what Brookings experts believe should be included in the budget this year.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Tuesday, Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, Iowa, brought forth a piece of legislation intended to extend crop and livestock insurance protections to 10 years for any new and beginning farmers.

The bill, known as the "Crop Insurance for Future Farmers Act," was introduced by Feenstra and Angie Craig, D-Prior Lake, Minnesota would double the length of current enhanced crop insurance protections, according to a release about the proposal.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), a member of the Senate Ag Committee, admits that passing a Farm Bill in 2023 is a steep challenge.

“Things would have to come together pretty quickly, the House has to pass one, the Senate has to pass one, our bills are not going to agree, I don’t believe.” 

LINCOLN, Neb. — Between the debt ceiling and defense spending, time may be running out to pass the farm bill this year.

All five members of Nebraska’s Congressional delegation got an education in autonomous agriculture during a visit to the tractor testing lab at the University of Nebraska. Farming has changed, and that could impact the hundreds of billions the federal government spends through the farm bill.

A former chair of the House Agriculture Committee is optimistic that Congress will pass the next farm bill on-time. Representative Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican, says he believes it is possible to finish the 2023 Farm Bill in 2023.

Lucas; “One of the most important things we had to do was pass a piece of legislation dealing not only with the debt ceiling but setting spending levels for the next few years. The allocation process in the House and Senate is going on. As we wait for those final numbers in the House, Chairman Thompson is now moving us in the direction of not just hearing here in D.C., but also field hearings around the country laying the groundwork.”

Humans have fought over food and the means of producing it for 20,000 years, as rock art in Australia shows. Food, water and land scarcity are primary drivers in two thirds of modern conflicts today. Indeed, many people seem to have forgotten that the primary German war aim in World War II was to take farmland from the Soviets and put German farmers on it. It is very likely that controlling the Ukraine’s bountiful and reliable food bowl is among Putin’s main aims also. In the short run this is imposing hunger and even starvation on hundreds of millions of people far beyond Europe. 

Spreading hunger in turn snowballs into government failures, civil wars and refugee tsunamis around the world – as it did in 2008 when a shortfall in Ukrainian grain exports led to revolutions in three Arab countries. Already, a third of a billion people – equal to the entire population of Europe – leave their homes each year, either as refugees or economic migrants, to seek better lives in countries which seem more stable and food secure. War will add to the flood.

The war raging in Ukraine has exacerbated food insecurity across the world — and food aid experts are looking to the 2023 farm bill for solutions.

Ukraine’s massive grain supplies typically feed 400 million people per year, but the war has “drastically cut supplies” and driven up food costs for consumers in rich and poor countries alike, according to the World Food Program (WFP). 

LINCOLN, Neb. — Between the debt ceiling and defense spending, time may be running out to pass the farm bill this year.

All five members of Nebraska’s Congressional delegation got an education in autonomous agriculture during a visit to the tractor testing lab at the University of Nebraska. Farming has changed, and that could impact the hundreds of billions the federal government spends through the farm bill.

President Joe Biden's student loan agenda would be all but obliterated by the U.S. debt legislation passed by House Republicans, dooming his mass cancellations, scrapping a more generous loan repayment option and permanently barring future regulation around student debt. Republicans see it as a victory for taxpayers. Democrats claim it would hurt the economy and block college students who need financial aid. The GOP bill would cancel both of Biden's marquee student debt proposals: a one-time cancellation of up to $20,000 for more than 40 million Americans, and an updated loan repayment plan that could slash monthly payments for millions. It would also lift a pause on federal student loan payments, forcing borrowers into repayment sooner than planned. On the House floor Wednesday, Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said Biden's plan for student debt was an obvious target as the government reins in spending. With an estimated cost of more than $500 billion, Biden's student debt plan is a "backdoor" attempt to provide free college on "the backs of blue-collar Americans," said Foxx, of North Carolina. Biden has threatened to veto the legislation, and his student debt cancellation plan is seen as untouchable by some Senate Democrats who may well kill the bill. Some of the strongest champions of cancellation have included Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. -- chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. A DIVIDING ISSUE Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle generally agree that the student loan system is broken, but they have differing approaches to fixing it. The issue has become a lightning rod in recent years amid rising college costs and a national student debt total that now surpasses $1.6 trillion. For Republicans, the fight offers a fresh opportunity to strike at Biden's student debt policies, which they view as an overreach. Conservative opponents have already gotten his cancellation temporarily halted in court, and it's now being reviewed by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. Unlike the GOP lawsuits, however, the new legislation takes aim at the full suite of Biden's student debt plans, including a proposed repayment plan that has mostly avoided the type of scrutiny that mass cancellation has seen. Biden's payment option would mostly replace four existing "income-driven repayment" plans with much more generous terms. It would cap monthly payments at 5% of a borrower's income, for example, down from 10% now. And it would charge nothing for those with yearly incomes of less than $30,000. No interest would be charged as long as payments were made on time. The plan was formally proposed in January but has yet to be finalized. Under the Republican bill, it would be revoked. Going a step further, the Republican plan would permanently bar the Education Department from issuing any future regulation that raises costs for the federal student aid program. That would amount to a dramatic shift in the way the agency does business. Administrations from both parties have used their regulatory power to update the loan program without going through Congress. The Trump administration used that authority to erase debt for disabled military veterans in 2019, and Biden used it to overhaul a debt forgiveness program for public servants. Borrower advocates assail the GOP bill, saying it would worsen the student debt crisis. Blocking the new repayment plan would "make permanent the debt trap for any borrower who does not earn enough money to afford their monthly loan bills," said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. PELL GRANT CUTS FORECAST The impact of the bill could go far beyond student debt. The Education Department estimates it would require a 22% budget cut across some of its biggest programs. The department estimates it would need to cut federal Pell Grants -- grants to students with significant financial need -- for 80,000 college students, and the maximum grant amount would be reduced by $1,000 for all other borrowers. It would also bring a $4 billion reduction in federal money for the nation's poorest schools, and cut other money for student mental health. The Pell reduction "annihilates the educational dreams of millions of Americans," said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Foxx disputed the department's accounting of reductions, however, saying the bill "doesn't mention a single word about Pell Grants." "If Democrats spent half the amount of time working with Republicans as they do fearmongering, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place," Foxx said in a statement. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona slammed Republicans for "staggering recklessness," saying the bill would be "taking us backward" and undercut efforts to help students recover from the pandemic. Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House education panel, rejected the bill as "a terrible deal for the American people." "I get tired of being lectured by the Republicans when it comes to fiscal responsibility, because we know that every Republican presidential administration since Nixon has left office with a worse deficit situation than they inherited," the Virginian said on the House floor Wednesday.

As the United States moves dangerously close to a default, Congressional Republicans look to go after several of the Biden Administration’s educational priorities. The House GOP Debt Bill, the text of which was released April 20th ahead of negotiations with President Biden, proposes significant cuts to federal funding for educational programs namely President Joe Biden’s Student Loan Relief program.  The GOP Debt Relief bill would stall the Student Loan Relief plan before the Supreme Court’s decision.   reports that over 70% of HBCU students are Pell-Grant eligible, with black students making up 72% of Pell Grant recipients amongst all colleges. That number outpaces Asian students (36% of Pell Grant recipients) and white students (34%). The Pell Grant program, which is the largest federal student loan assistance program for undergraduate students offered by the US Department of Education, is a form of need-based financial aid that was established in the Higher Education Act of 1965. This legislation also established the designation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for institutions of higher learning that were created before 1964 with the specific purpose of educating African-American students.   “Here in New York [the plan] would cut the maximum Pell Grant that millions of students use to get to community college by nearly $1,000. It would eliminate Pell Grants entirely for 5,000 students.” The Biden Administration has made several steps to increase Pell Grant funding. The President’s proposed  includes a Pell Grant expansion, including increasing funding by $1,400 and  as well as expanding eligibility to include undocumented students who meet certain criteria.  1. Eliminating the FAFSA verification requirement: Under the Trump administration, some students who applied for Pell Grants were selected for verification, which required them to provide additional documentation to prove their eligibility for financial aid.  The Biden administration has eliminated this requirement for most students, which has helped to simplify and streamline the application process. 2. Simplifying the FAFSA form:  The Biden administration has proposed simplifying the FAFSA form by reducing the number of questions and making it easier for students to transfer their tax information directly from the IRS. 3. Increasing outreach and support: The Biden administration has also increased outreach and support to help students apply for Pell Grants and other forms of financial aid. This includes expanding the role of the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office in providing information and assistance to students and families, as well as partnering with community organizations and schools to help students navigate the application process. The Department of Education’s Fact Sheet, linked here, has a comprehensive breakdown of how the GOP Debt Bill would affect education in all 50 states. The GOP Bill also proposes a massive cut in support for students with disabilities as well as cutting Title IV, Part A funding which allocates funding for mental health resources at educational institutions.

A  from the Pell Institute provides a comprehensive overview of various indicators of equity in access to higher education in America. One statistic in particular has been  in the media: Pell Grant awards have not been keeping up with college costs. It is a striking point—but, while rising tuition is certainly a problem, boosting Pell Grant spending may actually be counterproductive. Pell Grants, which have existed in some form since 1965, are a federal program that provides funds to colleges to help pay the attendance costs of students from low-income backgrounds. The chart displays the increase in maximum awards on Pell Grants next to the concurrent increase in college costs. At first glance, the chart demonstrates a failure of federal student aid to keep up with the rising cost of higher education—to the detriment of students, who must then fill the gap with loans, wages or savings. That is the conclusion reached by Pell Institute senior scholar Tom Mortenson, who argues in a  that in order to keep up with tuition inflation, Pell Grant maximum annual awards should increase to $13,000, more than double the 2016-17 maximum of $5,815. The cost of college has indeed increased exponentially. At public four-year institutions, the  (including tuition, fees, room and board) has increased 148% over the past 40 years. At their private counterparts, cost of attendance has risen almost as much, 144%. But Mortenson’s preferred policy prescription confuses cause and effect. Indeed, the bulk of the economic evidence indicates that college cost inflation over the past few decades is partially a result of Pell Grants themselves. One , published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, found that each dollar of additional Pell Grant aid increases sticker-price tuition by around 40 cents. This cost increase filters down to low-income students who might not be paying full tuition. According to the study, Pell Grants also lead colleges to reduce institutional financial aid. When the federal government increases Pell Grant generosity, colleges “capture” some of those additional funds by raising tuition. When students can pay more, colleges charge more , which partially cancels out any benefits to students. If maximum Pell Grant awards were increased from $5,815 to $13,000, average tuition would rise by at least 40% of the difference, or about $2,900. That is just tuition—it does not take into account any effects of Pell Grants on other college costs such as room and board, which have also been rising. By the logic of the proposed policy, therefore, Pell Grant awards would have to rise again, to around $15,000, to keep pace with cost of attendance. But that increase would again cause tuition to rise, which would necessitate another Pell Grant increase, and so on. Now, Pell Grants are certainly not responsible for all the inflation in college tuition—much of that honor lies with —but the economic evidence should raise a red flag against further large increases in award generosity. In addition, the benefits of such increases in Pell Grant generosity are not evenly distributed. According to  economist Lesley Turner, selective nonprofit colleges (which tend to have higher tuition)  69 cents on every dollar of additional Pell Grant funds, far more than the average. This means that students attending the priciest colleges will benefit much less from higher Pell Grant spending than their peers who attend inexpensive institutions. In other words, those who need more help paying for college will get less, and those who need less help will get more. Two other consequences of Pell Grants are worth noting. First, award amounts go down when the student’s family has more savings. This “implicit tax” reduces family assets by 7% to 12%,  to a paper by economics professor Jessica Wolpaw Reyes of . Finally, Pell Grants are, unsurprisingly, expensive. The Congressional Budget Office  the program costs taxpayers almost $30 billion per year. While many would argue that education is priceless ( on  and selfies notwithstanding), we ought to look at a program’s effects before deciding to double it. Pell Grants help many lower-income students afford higher education. But they do come with some rather nasty side effects. Instead of increasing Pell Grant generosity to keep up with rising tuition—a fruitless endeavor—policymakers ought to consider a broader set of reforms. Between Pell Grants and student loans, the federal government has a  on college finance options.  on federal student loans and a  for some private college-finance arrangements conspire to crowd out private actors. That is a shame—private investors could say no to colleges whose benefits do not exceed their high costs, restoring some market discipline to the higher-education sector. Moreover, private investors would be more receptive to  than is our current system. Under present law, a college must be accredited to receive federal aid—but it is hard to earn accreditation and even harder to lose it. Some subsidy for higher education may be appropriate. But excessive and poorly-designed subsidies drive up costs. The real question is not whether to spend more money, but how to spend it better.

Policymakers and the media use the Pell Grant program to measure the share of low-income students enrolled at specific colleges and universities, but the reliability of this measure is rarely scrutinized. This paper discusses several key limitations of the “Pell proxy” that could affect its reliability, especially when used to draw conclusions about admissions and recruiting practices at particular universities or categories of schools. Generally, the proxy undercounts low-income students enrolled in institutions of higher education while counting middle-income students as low-income. Using the Pell proxy to compare trends is even more problematic because Pell Grant take-up rates and eligibility rules have changed markedly over time. These trends may have affected the makeup of Pell Grant students differently by institution, reducing the reliability of the Pell proxy further. This analysis also illustrates that when Congress increases the maximum Pell Grant faster than the rate of inflation—which it tends to do over long periods of time—more middle-income families qualify for the program. This eligibility design increases the cost of the program more than would be necessary to increase grant size for only the lowest income students. Policymakers could adopt a number of changes to the program to address this issue and better target aid. Introduction Few statistics in higher education policy receive as much attention as the share of students from low-income families who attend different types of colleges and universities, particularly the most elite and selective institutions. Policymakers and the media use this enrollment information to assess the economic diversity of the student body at individual universities, whether universities are effectively recruiting low-income students, and how access to college has changed over time for students in different income groups. Yet hardly any of these analyses use actual information about a student’s income. Instead, they categorize all students who received a federal Pell Grant as low-income. For example, U.S. News reports the “economic diversity” of what it ranks as the top 25 national universities using the share of undergraduates at each school who received Pell Grants. U.S. News is careful to acknowledge that this is not a perfect measure of low-income status but goes on to say, “Many experts say that Pell figures are the best available gauge of how many low-income undergraduates there are on a given campus.”1 Similarly, researchers at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, in a report about Pell Grant recipients at selective universities, write that “the vast majority of Pell Grant recipients come from families with very low incomes—about 73 percent have an annual income of $30,000 or less,” which is why the share of students receiving Pell Grants “has become a widely-acknowledged proxy for how many low-income students a college or university is serving.”2 Similar to these two examples, many analyses that use Pell Grants to count low-income students warn that the measure is not perfect. Even so, they rarely provide much information on what the limitations of using this “Pell proxy” actually are. Some researchers have, however, uncovered flaws in the Pell proxy. In 2005, Jeffery Tebbs and Sarah Turner of the University of Virginia concluded that the limitations were severe enough to make it “inappropriate” for assessing enrollment policies and trends.3 This paper builds on and updates that work. It aims to provide more information on the Pell proxy’s limitations by making the proxy the focus rather than the means of the analysis. The paper first provides a brief explanation of the Pell Grant program, and discusses the available data on recipients and low-income student enrollments. It then illustrates some of the limitations of the Pell proxy through an analysis of five iterations of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) spanning the years 1995-96 to 2011-12, the most recent year for which data are available. The NPSAS is a nationally-representative dataset of college enrollees, and unlike other datasets, it includes information on student incomes and financial aid awards. The analysis reveals several key limitations of the Pell proxy that could affect its reliability, especially when it is used to draw conclusions about admissions and recruiting practices at particular universities or categories of schools. Generally, the proxy undercounts low-income students enrolled in institutions of higher education while counting some middle-income students as low-income. Using the Pell proxy to compare trends is even more problematic because Pell Grant take-up rates and eligibility rules have changed markedly over time. These trends may have affected the makeup of Pell Grant recipients and the share of students of students who receive Pell Grants differently at each institution, further reducing reliability of the Pell proxy to make cross-institutional comparisons.

Free community college, a focal point of , may be off the table for now. But higher education reformers shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief yet: This provision was only one of many meant to subsidize the already-bloated American higher education system. One important proposal is an expansion to the Pell Grant program, which has lured millions of academically ill-prepared students into expensive colleges. Expanding this inefficient program hurts not only taxpayers but also the low-income students it purports to help. The Pell Grant program, established in the 1970s, is a large component of the federal student aid system. Taxpayers pay more than $28 billion to support it. Biden’s plan another $550 to the maximum Pell amount, which is currently set at $6,495. According to , nearly a quarter of the 7 million Pell recipients receive the maximum amount. By these estimations, taxpayers will be on the hook for another $1 billion. This is likely an underestimation because expanding the limit will be felt down the chain. Biden’s provision opens the gateways for future expansions. Various higher education groups will be ready to jump at that opportunity. They are already demanding the of Pell grants. Supporters want to return to the days when this aid covered the majority of college costs. They say that the Pell awards have not kept up with the of college. But these same advocates ignore the fact that the expansion of federal student aid has contributed to the prohibitive costs of college. Universities have an artificially high supply of students — we can tell because 40 percent of recent college graduates are . While many end up doing the same jobs that a high school graduate could do, students are enticed to attend college because a degree is often tied to career and financial success. In addition, the easy availability of federal student loans gives colleges no incentive to lower their costs. Pell Grants encourage low-income students to attend universities, which only adds to the demand for college. But a college degree does not guarantee financial stability anymore. In fact, an increasing number of non-bachelor degree holders those with a college education. Respiratory therapists, aircraft mechanics and dental hygienists are some of the that don’t require a traditional four-year education. Even though the college degree is losing its competitive edge, many students are still encouraged to enroll — only to walk away with decades-long debt. And for Pell students, the outcomes may be even worse. of Pell students graduated with a bachelor’s degree in six years. Proponents of Pell Grants justify this astronomical dropout rate by attributing it to financial constraints of students and poor institutional resources. However, this explanation isn’t supported by the empirical evidence. Tuition-free provides an instructive example: Their typically low-income students drop out at the same rate as other low-income students across the country, even though Berea students lack financial constraints. The main reason Berea students drop out is learning about their academic ability — or lack thereof — during college. This explanation easily applies to Pell students, who historically have scored lower than non-Pell students on such as the SAT. Thus, it’s unlikely that increasing the grant size will alleviate the poor academic outcomes of these students. Conditioning awards on academic merit can fix these issues, but supporters of these financial aid programs don’t seem interested in this provision. Giving more funds to students after the fact does not fix poor academic preparation or other underlying problems. And if taxpayers are going to subsidize a $30 billion program, they should see significantly better results. Instead of expanding the Pell Grant program, our time and money would be better spent on implementing policies that improve the quality and accessibility of alternatives to traditional four-year degrees. For example, we could encourage more low-income students who have completed high school to enter skill-based fields. Jobs in these areas are not only in demand, but students will see a faster return on investment. This path gives low-income students an actual chance to climb out of their poor financial conditions. Expanding the Pell Grant system does not give universities incentives to lower their costs. College degrees instead become expensive barriers to a quality life. If we truly want to help low-income students, it’s time to break higher education’s stranglehold on good jobs and social mobility.

Pell Grants are one way the federal government helps people pay for college. During the 2020 to 2021 school year, eligible students can receive up to through the program, depending on where they go to school, how many classes they take and how much money their family makes. Despite this assistance, students who receive Pell Grants are less likely than other students to graduate from a four-year institution within six years: versus 59% for students who first enrolled in 2010. Six years is the timespan the federal government uses to measure graduation rates. One reason for this disparity is that Pell Grant recipients to less selective colleges and universities. than for more selective institutions. For instance, at four-year colleges with open admissions – that is, an institution where just about anyone who applies gets in – only of students who first enrolled full-time in 2011 graduated within six years. At selective schools, which admit only a quarter of their applicants, did. We are scholars who study and other . One of our recent studies finds that institutions that enroll high numbers of Pell grant recipients also have that are linked with lower graduation rates, such as having fewer students live on campus and . Our findings have implications for policymakers, taxpayers, college leaders and Pell Grant students themselves. College choice of the nation’s approximately college students received these grants in 2018. The federal government spent about on Pell Grants in that school year. More than half, , of Pell Grant recipients who are financially dependent on their parents had family incomes below $30,000 in 2015-16. But not all Pell Grant recipients are young or live with their parents. About half (53%) take care of themselves and . More degrees Congress what is now known as the Federal Pell Grant program in 1972. A primary goal was to address financial barriers to college enrollment for students from low-income families. Even with the availability of the federal Pell Grant, college enrollment rates for students from lower-income families. And, simply enrolling in college isn’t enough to lift these students out of poverty. They need to graduate. has found that increasingly, “good jobs” – defined as a job “that pays at least $35,000 for workers 25 to 44 and at least $45,000 for workers 45 to 64” – require at least a bachelor’s degree.

With approximately , higher education is an expectation for adults in the United States. By working hard in college, people hope to. However, affording the high price tag of these aspirations often requires loans, which can disadvantage low-income students. College financing programs, such as Pell Grants, intend to respond to the struggles of underprivileged students by offering financial support. Unfortunately, a lack of accountability in the Pell Grant program means that the financial support does not always translate into a college degree, especially when compared to their non-Pell grant receiving peers. Students from a lower socioeconomic background have historically struggled to afford college. To address this problem, the Pell Grant was created in 1972. , Pell Grants subsidize higher education for students from low-income backgrounds. Currently, these grants are the for college students, awarding Calculating the level of aid considers expected family contribution (EFC), estimated cost of college, enrollment status (full- or part-time), and program duration. Applications are coordinated through FAFSA, , and over Recipients of a Pell Grant are not burdened by the requirement to pay back the cost. However, the grants do not cover college expenses in full, and recipients often take on debt to supplement costs. [Graph omitted] among four-year college programs casts doubt on the Pell Grant program’s effectiveness. Across each institution—public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit—non-Pell receiving students are more likely to graduate than their Pell-receiving counterparts. Overall, students who attend a for-profit private college are also far less likely to graduate. Since Pell Grants are typically disbursed on a semester basis, funding may cover expenses for students unable to graduate. This scenario creates a flow of money from the government to the institution, with uncertain benefit to students. In these instances, the college profits off of Pell Grant students who cycle through with subsidized tuition and never obtain a degree. The financing and structure of our higher education system warrants reexamination. The country’s largest source of college funding, the Pell Grant, strives to increase graduation rates and college affordability. This mission is unaccomplished. Pell Grants require reassessment to make college a more viable option for low-income students. Alterations are needed to ensure that recipients benefit from the taxpayer-funded grants, rather than the colleges and universities they attend. Currently, Pell Grants lack a system of accountability—for students, universities, and the government—and strike the question of who is benefiting from the taxpayer money portioned for education.

In front of the iconic Old Manse, the oldest building in Arkansas constructed solely for the purpose of educating black students, there’s a plaque recounting the rich and poignant history of Arkansas Baptist College. Founded in 1884 to serve former slaves, the college is in Little Rock’s Central High historic district, named for the nearby public school that was forcibly integrated by federal troops and made famous by the iconic photo of jeering whites hurling vitriol at black children. “Growing Hope,” read the banners hanging from the metal fence encircling the campus. Arkansas Baptist is still predominantly black. Most of its students come from families with low incomes, as measured by the number who are eligible to receive federal Pell Grants, designed to help low-income students nationwide earn degrees. In 2011, federal figures show, 201 of its incoming freshmen got Pell Grants, representing some of the the Congressional Budget Office estimates the government has paid out through that program in the last decade. But new federal data show that, six years later, none of those students at Arkansas Baptist had graduated. Nor had any other freshmen who received Pell Grants in 2011 to attend 48 other colleges and universities, including taxpayer-subsidized public institutions. At other schools, as few as one in 100 Pell Grant recipients had earned a degree within six years. In all, of U.S. students at four-year universities and colleges who got Pell Grants in 2011 graduated within six years, by Seton Hall University assistant professor of education Robert Kelchen shows. That compares to . The proportion of Pell recipients who earned degrees within six years was lowest at for-profit institutions: 20 percent, . Pell recipients fared best at private, nonprofit campuses. There, 55 percent of Pell recipients graduated. The figures provide the first-ever look at the return on taxpayers’ investment in the Pell Grant, the largest single federal financial aid program; this information was never before collectively available, and while individual colleges were required to disclose it if asked, . About 7.5 million students are projected to get Pell Grants this coming academic year, . The generally low success rate reflects the special challenges that face low-income college students. It also shows the impact of their concentration in the institutions least equipped to help them succeed. Meanwhile, wealthier students predominate at elite private and public flagship universities that have significantly more resources. “There is some threshold at which there are things that colleges don’t have control over and can’t be accountable for, but if you are consistently leaving more students worse off than when they came to you, that doesn’t seem like a worthwhile investment,” said Jessica Thompson, policy and research director at the advocacy group The Institute for College Access and Success, or TICAS

There's now among politicians that is a serious problem in the United States, but there's little consensus on what to do about it. A simple thought experiment may rule out one potential solution: Helping more people go to college. Getting a college degree is valuable, according to calculations by a group of economists including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. If more people went to college, they'd be much better off. It's just hard to imagine how helping more high school graduates to earn college degrees could substantially undo the massive increase in inequality of the past several decades, which is largely a result of skyrocketing earnings among the very rich. Indeed, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans now claim nearly as large a share of national income as they did . "I am all for improving education," Summers earlier this month. "But to suggest that improving education is the solution to inequality is, I think, an evasion." Summers and his collaborators, the Upjohn Institute's Brad Hershbein and Melissa S. Kearney of the University of Maryland, calculated what would happen if they could wave their magic wands and give a college education to about 6.8 million American men who don't already have one. Relatively speaking, that's an enormous increase -- about the same proportion as the increase in the overall share of the population with a college degree since 1979. Everyone would be better off, not just those lucky men. Annual earnings at the first quartile -- those Americans making less than three quarters of the rest of the population -- would increase by about 43 percent. Median earnings -- what the typical worker makes -- would increase by 9 percent, or about $3,020 a year. These improvements are small compared to the overall level of inequality in the economy as a whole, however. A common measure of the disparity between rich and poor called the Gini coefficient would only decline slightly, from 0.57 in 2013 to 0.55. (The figure was 0.43 in 1979.) You might think that adding millions of college degrees would dramatically reshape the U.S. economy. Yet earnings for people with college degrees since the turn of the millennium. Meanwhile, for highly compensated workers, particularly , have been . Given these larger trends, even heroic efforts to improve educational attainment can only achieve so much. And it's important to note that Hershbein, Kearney and Summers don't try to provide a clear explanation of .

The Department of Education recently released new data for the , a critical consumer tool that provides vital college- and program-level data on college outcomes that are available for download. With this year’s release, the Department refreshed the Scorecard’s data, including college costs, student debt, graduation rates, and student body demographics, and they added the following new data elements: Median and average debt of students with federal student loans by Pell Grant status and sex Median earnings two years after completion Median and average Parent Plus loan debt, also disaggregated by Pell Grant status and sex Graduates earning more than 150% of the Federal Poverty Line Of the new data elements, we spotlight median debt by Pell Grant status, which can shed light on college affordability for low-income students. Most students who graduate with debt are from low-income backgrounds – national data show that over 7 in 10 of graduates (73%) with any federal loans also received a Pell grant, and that Pell graduates have about $4,500 more in debt than other graduates.[1] However, data showing differences in debt loads between Pell and non-Pell graduates has not been available by college or program until this release. These data indicate that debt disparities for students who progressed through the same education and graduated with the same degree are very common, and quite sizeable. Pell Students Graduate with Higher Median Debt than Higher-Income Peers Looking at median debt from College Scorecard, Pell graduates also have higher debt burdens than non-Pell graduates across credentials and when compared within the same program.[2] In fact, among a combined cohort of graduates from the Classes of 2017 and 2018, the median Pell recipient graduating from a bachelor’s degree program acquires $26,863 in student loans while their non-Pell counterparts borrow only $23,395 (15% more debt for Pell students than non-Pell).[3] In associate degree programs, non-Pell graduates had a median debt of $12,250 compared their Pell counterparts who had borrowed $16,370 (34% more). Non-Pell graduates who completed certificates also borrowed $9,833 in contrast to Pell graduates with $11,814 (20% more). Across these three credentials, the median Pell-to-non-Pell debt gap is $2,553.[4] Pell Students Graduate with Higher Debt in Three-Quarters of Programs Within the program-level data, Pell graduates borrowed more than non-Pell graduates at 75 percent of programs.[5] Across credentials, Pell graduates had borrowed more than non-Pell graduates at 74 percent of bachelor’s degree programs, 77 percent of associate degree programs, and 73 percent of undergraduate certificate programs. In many of the programs, the gap is quite large: About 28 percent of bachelor’s degree programs and 29 percent of associate degree programs reported Pell graduates borrowing more than $5,000 than their non-Pell peers. In about a quarter of programs, Pell graduates fare better than non-Pell graduates when it comes to debt loads, though the gaps are generally much smaller. Overall, only 3 percent of programs saw the debt loads of Pell graduates to be at least $5,000 less than non-Pell peers.

Over the past three months, some in the higher education community have launched a large, well-organized campaign to double the size of the federal Pell Grant for low-income college students. The is supported by a who’s who of college associations, universities, and college opportunity advocates, with a total of . In one sense, there is nothing surprising about this broad support for Pell Grants: increasing funding in this way is an easy way to signal college and university support for low-income students. But in another sense, the sudden emergence of this major campaign, right now, deserves a closer look, since the universities, not just the students, stand to benefit financially, and some of those now excited about Pell have not always considered it a priority. Some college leaders, in other words, may now be more enthusiastic about a Pell increase because they are concerned that other higher education investments on Democrats’ agenda will not send as much revenue their way. With the budget slated for approval, Congress and the Biden administration are prioritizing an equity agenda that features support for community colleges, HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions, and financial aid for . These investments are being proposed in the wake of an unprecedented push from the left about student debt, and in particular the racial impacts of student debt. Congress is poised to put a healthy portion of the $3.5 trillion (or whatever total amount ends up being negotiated) into higher education. Who will get the money? The momentum has been pointing toward community colleges and HBCUs. The Double Pell Grant push could shift the momentum, steering Congress in a direction that sounds like it benefits low-income students, but actually spreads the funds to a broader set of institutions where the benefits will end up being less targeted to needy students, and in many cases does not make college more affordable for such students. The Double Pell campaign puts supporters of HBCUs and community colleges in a tough spot. They can’t oppose the movement because Pell—a mainstay of college aid flowing to these schools—has always been a high priority. But working out the details of a national free-tuition community college plan—and an , if it gets traction—is going to be vexing. That makes the simplicity of a Pell Grant boost attractive in comparison. A larger Pell Grant, for example, doesn’t require any new formulas, state opt-in decisions, or matching funds. It’s a classic example of the worst kind of incrementalism, in which modest bump-ups of resources in one funding pipeline do nothing to change the underlying system of higher education finance. And if the nation truly wants to address equity concerns in higher education (and beyond), that system needs change. So while doubling the Pell Grant sounds dramatic and well-intentioned, it does too little to change the status quo, not least of which because it allows universities to claim a financial windfall without ensuring that needy students get more overall aid. An alternative Pell plan is needed, one that truly and more accurately directs whatever investment toward college equity and affordability comes out of the Build Back Better plan. It could be called the Pell Bonus: a premium on top of the Pell Grant at institutions that are actually using the money to reduce student debt, and that are serving students from low- and middle-income families. This commentary briefly reviews how Pell Grants work in practice right now, followed by some details about how a Pell Bonus proposal could be fashioned in service of targeted, more effective change. Pell Grants Don’t Necessarily Reduce Student Costs The Pell Grant program is popular with the public because it has been promoted—especially by private colleges—as money that “goes to the student” to help them afford higher education. It doesn’t really work that way, however. Pell Grant funds are paid directly to colleges, which include them in their pricing and financial aid strategie. Too often the Pell funds displace institution-given aid or tuition discounts, which means at the end of the day, the school has more revenue while the student’s costs are unaffected. When more money becomes available to the leaders of a nonprofit or public college, they essentially have two options for what to do with it. They can increase their investment in any of the college’s operations, such as reducing class size, providing more services to students, or improving facilities and equipment. Or they can pass the money along to students through scholarships or tuition waivers, reducing the amount that students may need to borrow or work to attend school. (For-profit schools have a third option: they can deliver more profits for owners and investors, which has caused . Government aid to those schools should not be delivered through vouchers such as Pell Grants and student loans, or the U.S. Department of Education should screen out any institutions that do not put most of these funds into instruction and student support.) Under the current structure of the Pell Grant program, colleges can use the nefarious science of to increase their capture of financial aid and use it for purposes other than reducing costs to the students whose enrollment delivered that aid. These colleges, knowing that the grant money is coming, invisibly reduce the amount of tuition discount or other aid they would have given these students, and instead use the “extra” funds for purposes other than reducing the student’s need to borrow or work. Another unfortunate truth is that state lawmakers, ever-strapped for budget funds, often will reduce their support of public institutions in response to the growth of federal grants. That seems to be one reason a previous era’s near doubling of the Pell Grant resulted in in low-income enrollment. In practice, very little about the Pell Grant actually results in a more affordable system for low-income students. Instead, the program simply provides colleges with more money, absent accountability. That is why, if the goal is to reduce debt among low-income students, making a major federal investment in community colleges instead makes more sense. One idea, based on a plan by President Obama in 2015, is to provide matching funds to states for two-year colleges that do not charge tuition at all, ensuring that grant aid such as Pell could be used to help address the cost of books, supplies, rent, child care, transportation and other expenses that low-income students often cannot afford without taking on crippling debt. That is the approach that the in its Build Back Better plan. Still, politically, the Pell Grant is more compelling than a complicated-formula matching grant to states. In fact, the battle between a support-for-institutions plan and a misleading but more compelling support-for-students plan is precisely the that led to the Pell Grant and student loan programs of today. Congress chose the bumper sticker “money to students” plan, in the form of grants and loans—money that has, in many cases, been gobbled up by well-endowed, high-tuition colleges and has undoubtedly contributed to state disinvestment in public higher education systems. In any event, attaching accountability to the Pell boost is the way that progressives can better direct Congress’s investment, whether it ends up focusing on community colleges and HBCUs or on Pell Grants. That accountability should focus on two metrics: diversity, and affordability.