Pell Grants are on the chopping block with more than $127 million slated to get cut from California Community College students.
The U.S. House of Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) is proposing to cut the program and make changes to the eligibility requirements. The $5,500 maximum award is maintained only eligibility is affected.
In 2010-11, 491,447 California Community College students received Pell Grants totaling $1.6 billion, according to an email interview with Rosa de Anda, government relations policy expert at the California Community College Chancellor’s Office.
She said less than half-time students would be eliminated, more than 64,000 students (13 percent of current community college students). This would cut the Pell Grant Program by approximately $67 million.
The change would also eliminate 19,000 students  (4 percent of current students) without a GED or High School Diploma, she said. This would cut approximately $60 million from the Pell Grant Program.
Anda said the subcommittee would also reduce income ceilings for calculating the Pell Grant Award. This would reduce the size of the award for many students and eliminate some students entirely.
The subcommittee also proposes reducing the number of years students are eligible for the Pell Grant from nine years to six, said Scott Lay, president and CEO of the Community College League of California.
Lay said the Pell Grant program got more expensive as unemployment rates rose and family incomes declined. “We should be proud of that,” he said. “In this time of economic distress, citizens across the country are returning to school to retrain to gain the ever-changing skills needed to be competitive in the workforce.”
The Pell Grant costs will go down as last years was a peak, Lay said.
Kris Shear, SRJC’s Director of Student Financial Services said that roughly 4,500 SRJC students received the Pell Grant last year. Their financial aid awards totaled about $15 million, she said.