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Claiborne Pell, the legendary legislator who gave his name to the Pell grant, passed away yesterday. Over at Tapped, Tim Fernholz assesses the state of his signature accomplishment:
Today, the average tuition for a public four-year college is $6,585, and for a private institution it rises to $25,143. That doesn't include the price of books or room and board. When the program began the maximum grant covered 72 percent of the average public tuition and 35 percent of the average private tuition; today it covers 65 percent and 17 percent, respectively -- and that's the maximum grant, not the average. Keep in mind as well that one of the first targets for state legislators looking to trim their budgets in these, say it with me, trying economic times will be their state's universities, which could lead to tuition increases.That last is an important point. People tend to understand recessions as temporary phenomena. Two years of slow economic growth, then it's over. But a student who has to drop out of college because he can't afford tuition sees his earnings reduced for a lifetime. So too with a high school graduate who can't collect the loans to move on to college. Mitigating this sort of long-term damage should be our first concern in any stimulus bill, and it shouldn't be a partisan point. Pell had a great line on negotiations. "I believe in letting the other fellow have my way," he'd say. It's a good moment for the Congress to have Pell's way.
