AT Pell Grant CP - Michigan 7 2023 CPSW

Affirmative
No Solvency – Inequality
Can’t solve inequality—not a sufficient change to the squo and pulls necessary focus from community college and HBCUs
Robert Shireman, 21, Robert M. Shireman is an American higher education policy expert and nonprofit leader currently working as the director of higher education excellence at The Century Foundation. “The Campaign to Double the Pell Grant Is Well-Intentioned, but Must Lead to Improved Affordability and Diversity,” Century Foundation, 9-15-2021, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/campaign-double-pell-grant-well-intentioned-must-lead-improved-affordability-diversity/, 7-7-2023)//AAlmand
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 Double Pell campaign is supported by a who’s who of college associations, universities, and college opportunity advocates, with a total of 1,200 groups and counting. 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 Build Back Better 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 Dreamers. 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 investment in HBCU endowments, 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 repeated scandals. 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 enrollment management 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 only a scant increase 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 first proposed 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 House Education and Labor Committee has taken 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 debate fifty years ago 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.
Pell Grant students left 6 billion more in debt than Non-Pell peers—increases inequality gap
Angelique Palomar, 20, Angelique manages TICAS’ external communications, media relations, websites, and publication production. She is passionate about using communications and digital advocacy to create social change. “New Data Show Recent Graduates Who Received Pell Grants Left School with $6 Billion More in Debt than Their Peers, Institute for College Access & Success,” 12-21-2020, https://ticas.org/affordability-2/new-data-show-recent-graduates-who-received-pell-grants-left-school-with-6-billion-more-in-debt-than-their-peers/, 7-5-2023)//AAlmand
The Department of Education recently released new data for the College Scorecard, 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.
College degrees are not sufficient to solve all inequality—only a slight decline in Gini coefficient
Max Ehrenfreund, 15, Max Ehrenfreund is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University in history of science. His research concerns how human beings use available knowledge and information to make economic decisions. “Why you can’t solve income inequality by sending people to college,” Washington Post, 3-31-2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/31/why-you-cant-solve-income-inequality-by-sending-people-to-college/, 7-7-2023)//AAlmand
There's now broad agreement among politicians that inequality of income 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 on the eve of the Great Depression. "I am all for improving education," Summers told Wonkblog 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 have declined since the turn of the millennium. Meanwhile, salaries for highly compensated workers, particularly corporate executives, have been rising. 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 how to get so many people through college.
No Solvency – Low Grad Rate
No solvency—as few as 1% graduation rate for Pell Grant students at universities
Jon Marcus, 18, Jon Marcus has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Times (U.K.) Higher Education magazine. His work has been honored by the National Headliner Awards, Mirror Awards, and National Awards for Education Reporting. He has an MA in journalism from Columbia University, attended Oxford University, and teaches journalism at Boston College and Northeastern University. “Billions in Pell Grants go to students who aren’t graduating, new data shows,” PBS NewsHour, 10-30-2018, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/billions-in-pell-grants-go-to-students-who-arent-graduating-new-data-shows, 7-4-2023)//AAlmand
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 more than $325 billion 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, only half of U.S. students at four-year universities and colleges who got Pell Grants in 2011 graduated within six years, an analysis of this data by Seton Hall University assistant professor of education Robert Kelchen shows. That compares to nearly 60 percent of all students. The proportion of Pell recipients who earned degrees within six years was lowest at for-profit institutions: 20 percent, the nonprofit education research group Ithaka S+R finds. 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, some refused. About 7.5 million students are projected to get Pell Grants this coming academic year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 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
Pell Grants lack accountability –20% graduation rate leaves students in debt and universities with profit
Shayna Cohen, 20, Cohen is the Director of Legislative Affairs at the Torchlight Policy Center and DMC Public Policy Writer. “Financing America’s Colleges: The Reality of Pell Grants,” DeVoe L. Moore Center Blog, 4-2-2020, https://devoelmoorecenter.com/2020/04/02/financing-americas-colleges-the-reality-of-pell-grants/, 7-7-2023)//AAlmand
With approximately two out of every three high school graduates enrolled in university or college, higher education is an expectation for adults in the United State

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