Pell promise

To the editor:

President Bush recently proposed an annual increase of $100 for the maximum annual federal Pell Grant award for needy students. This would increase the current $4,050 maximum annual grant to $4,550 by 2010.

This falls far short of the maximum Pell Grant authorized by Congress in one of the 1998 reauthorization amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965. In 1998, Congress voted to set the maximum Pell Grant award at $4,500 for the 1999-2000 academic year, with annual increases to the award over the next five years resulting in a maximum award of $5,800 by 2003-2004.

President Bush’s 2010 goal only strives to attain the award total that Congress envisioned for 1999-2000, a full decade before. Also, there is no guarantee that Congress will ever appropriate a single dollar to fund an increase in any year of his five-year plan. Congress has failed to appropriate enough money for the maximum award for even one year of the 1998-2005 reauthorization period.

So long as the Pell Grant is subject to an annual appropriation process, it will always be an empty promise when the president and lawmakers propose to increase the maximum award. This grant will be competing with the costs of war, homeland security and other national needs.

Chris Johnson,

Lawrence