Critics Say Trump Budget Won’t Protect Pell Grants
“jeopardize Pell’s long-term sustainability”
Something has to be done to reign in the cost of college and the crazy amount of borrowing that goes along with it.
It would be great if Trump got the government out of the picture completely.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
Protecting Pell? Critics Say Budget Wouldn’t
The document outlining the Trump administration’s first budget, released in a bare-bones outline Thursday, states that the White House plan “safeguards” the Pell Grant program and would leave the key financial aid source for needy students on “sound financial footing for the next decade.”
But many advocates for low-income students say the opposite is true. By taking about a third of the program’s multi-billion-dollar surplus and cutting other college access programs, they assert, the new administration would jeopardize Pell’s long-term sustainability and harm the prospects of low-income students.
What the White House is calling its “skinny budget” — a broad outline of the detailed 2018 fiscal proposal due from the administration later this spring — seeks an overall cut of 13 percent of the Department of Education’s funding from the current year. To offset steep proposed increases in military spending, the budget blueprint seeks $54 billion in cuts across the board to nondefense spending.
Trump wrote in his budget message that the administration’s blueprint makes tough choices to reinvest in the country’s military without adding to the federal deficit. “In these dangerous times, this public safety and national security budget is a message to the world — a message of American strength, security and resolve,” he said.
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He says Pell grants will continue, they says Pell grants will not continue. Time to abolish the US Department of Education.
https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rep-massie-introduces-bill-to-abolish-federal-department-of-education
Isn’t it amazing how well the ongoing bankruptcy of the US continues to be documented even while the speed at which we go bankrupt accelerates and yet every time anyone attempts to pull back our out-of-control spending the cries of protest immediately rise up. “It’s unfair to cut our money”, “We cannot survive without this money”,”Without this money the people have no where to get help” and so forth, are typical cries and only serve to show how dependent everyone is on someone else’s money and how utterly lazy we have become by refusing to take our own matters into our own hands and fix our own problems.
Time to invest in the good students, only. Give a broad range of kids a chance to prove themselves in community college if they haven’t already. At some point fairly fast, if you aren’t showing strength, you’re moved to vocational training or left on your own.
The Pell grants and other easy, sleazy loans have facilitated the large tuition increases that colleges have imposed in the past decade. Students are told, “Don’t worry about whether you can pay for it. You can get Federal loans.” But then, once they graduate, the loans start to come due. If the students don’t get a good job quickly, they are likely to default on the loan.
This is particularly bad for students whose majors aren’t in great demand. (Anthropology, Sociology, History, Literature, etc.) It’s even worse for students with flakey majors. (Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Environmental Studies, etc.)
Tyrant Obama the Liar increased discretionary spending by 25% in 2009. We should cut everything except defense by 25% and get rid of the Dept. of Education.