Student Loan News, Updates and Blog Posts

Claiborne Pell, the senator who created the college grant program to aid lower-income students, would be happy to hear that the 44^th President is looking to increase the maximum Pell Grant allotment from $4,850 to $5,350 by injecting 15.6 billion dollars into the program under the new economic stimulus bill.

In 1976, the first year the Pell Grant program was fully funded, the maximum allotment was $1,400, which covered about 70% of the cost of attendance at a typical four-year public college. Today, given education costs have been soaring at a rate far greater than inflation (nearly tenfold in the past three decades in fact) the Pell Grant only covers about 30% of the cost of tuition. Needless-to-say students can use all the help they can get.

If the economic stimulus bill goes thru as constituted the $500 Pell Grant maximum allotment increase will be in place for the upcoming 2009-2010 academic year.