Minimum Pell Grant Award Likely to Increase by $250

The Pell Grant award is a need-based financial award for undergraduate students.

Higher education lobbyists expect President Bush to sign the bill, which Congress approved only a few days before Christmas, sometime later in January.

Bush received the bill Jan. 4.

If Bush signs the bill, eligible students could receive up to $4,000 a year -- up from the previous $3,750 cap -- from the program, starting at the beginning of the 2002-03 school year.

Shirley Ort, UNC-Chapel Hill director of scholarships and student aid, said congressional approval of the increase caught officials off guard. "We were actually shocked," Ort said. "We've been trying to do this for several years and have been unsuccessful."

She said the proposed increase would result in UNC-CH students getting an additional $500,000 to $750,000 in financial awards based on past figures.

During the 2000-01 school year, more than 1,900 UNC-CH undergraduates received a total of about $4.1 million in Pell Grant awards.

Ort said the success of the proposal demonstrated the need to keep higher education issues on the minds of U.S. representatives and senators.

She said pressure from higher education lobbyists and students prompted Congress to pass the increase, even though Bush's budget proposal did not increase the maximum Pell Grant award.

Congress overruled a request from Bush that the maximum Pell Grant award remain $3,750 because of a declining economy and increasing budget demands.

The $250 Pell Grant hike will require more than $550 million in addition to Bush's original funding request of $9.76 billion.

The bill would also boost the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program to $725 million -- an increase of $34 million.

The program supplies money to especially needy students who also qualify for a Pell Grant. Bush made no request for additional funding.

The congressional and Bush's proposals are both dramatic increases for the Pell Grant award, which received $8.76 billion in federal funding last fiscal year.

Robert Samors, UNC-system associate vice president for federal relations, said the increase in Pell Grant awards will benefit the nation's economic slowdown by allowing more people to afford higher education. "In a declining economy, more people are going back to school," Samors said.

Samors said he thinks the sluggish economy and high demand for education will prompt Bush to sign the bill, even though the president did not initially ask for the increase.

Assistant State & National Editor Elyse Ashburn contributed to this story.

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.